Local Flavor Accidental Acres
THE MINUTE I HEARD ABOUT IT— even before seeing it—I fell in love with Lorraine’s place.
On five acres just a short drive from our house, Lorraine Hough offered more than a home daycare. She had chickens in the yard, a small organic vegetable patch from which she’d prepare wholesome meals for the kids, and a friendly lumbering yellow Lab named Louis. It was 2007 and right away we signed up our daughter Sahara to join the other kids at Dandelion Daycare.
After Sahara “graduated,” I missed the ride through the country and the regular contact with Lorraine and the other day-care families. As years went by, Lorraine and her husband, Jon Solomon, quietly expanded their gardens—adding fruit trees and more chickens. In 2016 they decided upon the name Blue Spring Farm and set up a roadside farmstand. By 2018, they began to offer CSA shares to their day-care families and would donate surplus produce to Food Gatherers, an Ann Arbor food bank. Jon quit his day job to dedicate himself to the day care and farm.
When COVID hit, Lorraine and Jon reluctantly closed the day care and committed themselves to the farm full time. They soon added more hoop houses, more chickens, and more hands on deck, finding farm help through Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization that connects farmers with people looking to learn organic farming hands-on, in exchange for room and board.
Today Blue Spring Farm supplies CSA shares for 65 households and sells produce at Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, in addition to their roadside stand. Once a week members flock to Blue Spring Farm, greeted by Lorraine or Jon and leave with a few bags of produce, perhaps a dozen eggs, cut flowers, bread and other baked goods, plus a sense of connection to each other, the community and the land.
A POSTSCRIPT Weekly pickups were especially meaningful in 2020, as we all struggled with the isolation. The peaceful drive, and contact with Lorraine and Jon, other members, and old friends from the daycare, were priceless.
I interviewed Lorraine for this project on a cold sunny day in February 2022. It was 18 degrees outside, but a balmy 63 in her hoop house, where we sat, maskless, on folded chairs, 6 feet apart. With fragrant, freshly spread compost underneath us, awaiting the first plantings of the season, we chatted at length about the CSA, the day care, and also about caring for our aging parents.
As I near the end of this project, I’m not convinced that it’s all been so accidental for Lorraine...powerful threads of caring and community building shine through with everything she does, and that’s no accident.
—Kate Uleman, March 15, 2022, Ann Arbor
Kate Uleman got her start as a staff artist for Zingerman’s and still loves to draw anything food-related. Currently hooked on comics, Kate started this essay as part of an online comics journalism class she took last winter through the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
