There once was a girl named Liz
who never thought she’d be in the farmin’ biz

From New York City to Iowa City
The street blocks became corn stalks

From management consultant to farm apprentice
Traded in her laptop for crops,
Her fancy suits for rain boots

It’s plain to see
That Sunflower Fields is where she’s happy to be!

I’m not sure what surprises me most – living in Iowa or farming or farming and living in Iowa. Certainly two things I never would have predicted were in my future but have been pleasant surprises. I moved to Iowa City back in September having lived in New York City for the last 8 years. Without going through my entire life story, I’ll provide you with a geographical summary. My life began in Northern California, followed by Tucson, AZ with a brief stint in India. From Tucson, I moved to the big city.

After finishing college in New York, I went to work for a strategy and operations consulting firm where I spent the next 2 years traveling to various client sites helping them solve their myriad of business problems. Consulting, however, quickly lost its appeal as I was seeking something more tangible and personally meaningful. Accounts payable just didn’t do it for me.

One thing lead to another and I found myself jobless in Iowa with a new interest in local and sustainable food systems and farming and all the other things that had been absent from my life living in a big city. Lucky for me, I found Solveig and Michael and Sunflower Fields.

When I’m not farming, I try to fill my time with various physical activities like soccer, rugby, skiing, running, hiking, surfing (although I don’t think I could be much farther from the ocean than I am now), and pretty much any other outdoor activity as well as crafty projects like soap, t-shirt, and beer making and knitting.