Heritage Farm and the Best Museum I Never Saw

I had this whole trip planned down to the hour.  One day, four stops:

9:00am: Seed Savers Heritage Farm outside of Decorah, IA
12:00pm: Lunch at the Angry Pickle
1:00pm: Vesterheim Museum
3:00pm: Dunning's Spring Park

But in true Drifter fashion, I made it through exactly half of that list, before abandoning the Vesterheim and Dunning Springs to another trip scheduled for sometime in the future.  I know, I know.  No trip to Decorah is complete without a stop at the Vesterheim, and Dunning's Springs is the little-known jewel tucked away in the town.  For all my talk of exploration, how could I just not go?

Quite simple, really.  The weather was perfect for strolling downtown, window shopping, and people watching.  And supporting the local Co-op, of course.  The Vesterheim and Dunning's Springs aren't going anywhere for the time being, but days like that are quickly slipping behind as we move into the heavy-hot days that are the hallmark of an Iowan summer.

But let's start from the beginning, shall we?

At this rather remarkable place

Heritage Farm is part of the Seed Savers Exchange, a collection of gardeners, farmers, and heirloom enthusiasists who are devoted to the practice of keeping the seeds from their garden produce for planting the following spring, and consequently preserving the genetic biodiversity of garden species.  A tomato is not just a tomato, you see.  Hybrids are sometimes sterile, and incapable of producing fruit the next year, and some species of plants are genetically altered so they will only produce one time, forcing gardeners to rebuy stock year after year.  Heirloom species are different in that the seeds can be planted and will produce year after year. They have been preserved by their keepers for generations, and Seed Savers created a large seed bank of those species and varieties and distribute them to others. 

Just one of the many gardens on site.  My visit was quite early in the season, but in the next
 month or two there will be a proliferation of greenery and blooms and produce.

The Farm is a kind of demonstration, with gardens full of more kinds of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squashes, and beans then I thought possible. 

Like these really pretty Christmas Lima beans!

They also are keepers of a decent herd of the ancient White Park Cattle, which apparently was prevalent across Britain over 2000 years ago, but now are so rare they must be carefully managed in order to maintain their genetic diversity.

I learned all that from this interpretive sign, but then had to slowly back away.

Note: This is not a petting zoo, this one was huffing and gruffing
and freaking me out.  Plus, one of the office buildings was
right behind me, and I didn't want to be accused of enraging
ancient cattle.

We were maintaining a safe distance from one another.

Baby cows! Really adorable.

In addition to preserving the diversity of food plants and pre-Christ cattle, they also have a few pigs and chickens.

The above sign scared me into not taking pictures or even spending that long looking at all the baby chickens in their coop.  But they are there, and they are very cool.

But the sight-seeing doesn't end there.  There are miles of trails, including one leading to their orchard with hundreds of varieties of apples.  I went on a few of the shorter treks and was blown away by the idyllic scenery at every glance.

Along the Valley Trail.  Perfect weather.  No bugs.  Slight breeze that smelled like flowers. 

I imagine this is what the land must have looked like before our population exploded.

This is what lined the path along the Oak Woodland trail.

Overlook along the Oak Woodland trail just to the east of the Lillian Goldman Visitor's Center.
And yes, that is one of the white cows in the left-hand corner.

Before I knew it, three hours had slipped by and my stomach had begun trying to eat itself.  I made one last stop in the Visitor's Center to buy a few tomato plants (Black Krim and Gold Medal), peppers (Purple Beauty and Orange Bell), and the Dark Opal basil plant I've been coveting for some time.  After all, I should do my part to enhance biodiversity at every opportunity, right? I also somehow ended up with free seed potatoes which are now resting in a friend's garden.  Then, a last gander through the flower garden.

I left the Farm and headed back into Decorah, and it took a couple of spins around the main drive to locate the Angry Pickle, and then a few more to find a parking space.  Inside, only a few tables were occupied, and I spent a leisurely thirty minutes munching on my Jump & Shout sandwich with a side of the famous spicy pickles and perusing through the pictures on my camera.  Sometimes (okay, all the time), I wish I could get paid for being a tourist.

My plan was to go to the Vesterheim, the museum dedicated to the Norwegian immigrants coming to America, after lunch.  But, if you'll remember from the intro, I didn't quite make it in there.  Well, I mean, I was there, but I just didn't go in.  I can't decide if I metaphorically rejected my Norwegian heritage by walking away from the imposing building, or embraced it by pioneering into the unexplored downtown.

I did, however, go to the nearby museum gift store, and had something of a museum-esque experience as I looked around at books, carvings, jewelry, dishes, toys, and specialty food items in a silence only broken by soft music.  Emerging back into the bright sunlight, I took myself on a tour of downtown Decorah, and was happy to see so many people out and about.  Of course, I had to stop in at the local food co-op, because who can pass up buckwheat flour sold in bulk? Or freshly baked bread? Or raspberry struesel?

Not this girl.

So did I learn anything about myself, the whole reason for this series of trips, during this particular meandering?
 

Besides that I want to live here.

Kind of.

I was sincerely hoping for a bolt from the sky spelling out what where to go from here, or if I should go at all.  But no such luck, and I drove home more depressed than when I had left that morning.

It really wasn't until a few days had passed and I was planting the tomato plants that I let my mind go back to what part the Farm had to play in my little, temporarily dramatic, life.

What finally came, was not solid direction, not a decision to stay or go, but a very simple and obvious revelation:  I don't have to save the world.  I used to really want to, and I'd still like to, but sometimes saving it is a simple as planting a tomato plant that hundreds of others have planted that year, and that thousands of others have planted before me.

No, nothing earth-shattering. But, it does take some of the pressure off of the inevitable choices I have to make.  I used to think I had two options: stay where I am, or go back to school for something else.  I had somehow forgotten there are other paths.

Whatever I decide, the sun will still rise in the east, the birds will still sing, and the Black Krim cares naught what I do, as long as I keep her watered and in a sunny spot and promise not to forget to plant her daughters again next year.  That's something that is immensely comforting.