Ninna, a waitress at Jean’s Restaurant in West Hoosick Falls, 12 miles down the road, has become a good and precious friend. She is a Sunday morning friend. She is especially fond of Maria, perhaps because she finds a fellow working girl with a lot of energy and a big heart. That describes Ninna as well.

Like Maria, Ninna works like a fiend and has a great big heart and a beautiful soul.

She said she was happy to have her portrait taken, but only if Maria was in it also. These two are very kind, lovely people who seem to one another. We love Jean, who has our coffee and tea waiting for us before we enter the restaurant.

I doubt we will ever see Ninna away from the restaurant, although that would be neat, it isn’t that kind of friendship. It’s three kindred spirits coming together and each getting the other.

Ninna always has time to say hello, over a hug, ask how we are doing (and meaning it (and take an order, usually simultaneously. She is much loved by the people who come to Jeans on weekends. She seems to know everyone.

I have come to love and admire Nimma, her life has not been simple or easy,  but she radiates love, caring, and courage. She worries about others more than herself and seems to know everyone who enters the restaurant and any trouble they might be having.

She has a wicked sense of humor and a soft and sweet hug.

I think every waitress in Jean’s Diner has a social worker inside.

I’ve been trying to take Ninna’s portrait for a month, but Jeans is a madhouse on Sunday mornings. Ninnia is an unsung hero to me; wherever she does, she smiles, and a good feeling about people follows.  I agreed to do the joint photo; I’m glad I did. My Leica had a focus problem, so I switched to the Iphone. (From her to the end, I got the Leica working.)

 

Cory McMillan is one of those people who don’t just dream about things; he is working – and successfully – to make his dreams come true. He and his wife Sarah are part of the young revolution changing how we eat in the country and for the better.

He and Sarah will drive their Shift Food Cart to the Farmer’s Market on Sundays this summer. “Takeout Dinner!,” I said to Maria the minute I heard.

I admire Corey; he gave up his day job, bought a decaying old food wagon, rebuilt it with his own hands and skills, and along with his wife Sarah, a nutrition teacher in a Vermont school, launched Shrift Woof Fired pizza, a radically different kind of healthy pizza and salads, each of them a meal until itself.

Sarah, who puts her nutrition teachings to excellent use in Shift, will be out of school for the winter, and the two can continue to build up their business, which was an almost instant hit, even in Cambridge, a community that is just beginning to ponder the idea of healthy eating and the value of local farms.

The rule in the country is usually that the greasiest and the heaviest are the best. Mayonnaise is generally poured on food like soup, and hamburgers swim in grease. The Shift is very different, and the food is organic – all from local farms – healthy and even delicious.

This is no small feat up here.

Corey and Sarah represent a significant change in my small town, they park next to the local brewery three nights a week, and I’m delighted to see the lines getting longer all the time. Corey is making his dream come true rather than complaining about his life; that is meaningful to me. As shown on Shift, organic and locally grown food is a radical departure in the country.

I admire the lives Corey and Sarah have chosen for themselves – creativity, hard work, independence, and a life not shaped by commercialism, faux security, or money. They work for themselves and appear to love what they are doing. I’ve known Corey for a few years.

I’m not sure I’ve ever caught him smile like this.

These two are doing well and seem very happy. Godspeed to them. I ran into Corey at the Farmers Market today; I asked him if could take his portrait to add to my collection of people I like and admire. He said sure.

This  market is where I find some of my best portraits; the market seems to draw vendors who are strong, have character, and are innovative.

I guess I didn’t expect that in a Farmer’s Market. Every time we go there, which is every Sunday, I meet someone new whose portrait I want to take.

The shift is a diversified pizza wagon, a new pizza place.

The wagon makes thin, wood-fired pizza – one pizza has Asparagus, Pesto Asparagus, Goat Cheese, and Asia Garlic and Oil, with thin strips of Italian Sausgae, Spinish  Asiaco Blend, and Mozzarella.

There are many different pizzas, all original and with ingredients from local farms. There is also Cobb Salad Bowl, Green Goddess Bowl, Burrito Bowl, Roasted Root Bowl, Ceaser Salad, Meditteranean Bowl, And Thai Bowl (spinach cucumber, carrot, red pepper, and packed onion.) Whenever I can, I order a salad.

This is not our grandparent’s pizza parlor. Good for them; young people are revolutionizing eating around here,  figuring out how to do it while their predecessors scream and stumble. They have energy, courage, and imagination. It’s a timeless formula; it still works.

 

 

I’d never heard of the Diversified Farm before, but it makes perfect sense. I guess it is the small family farm of the future.

Anne and her family (son Matthew is our farrier) saw what was coming with rising land costs and taxes on their former farm in New Jersey. They withdrew to our small town of Cambridge, moved into the farm they had purchased up here – Hickory Wind Farm– and started over, creating a “diversified” farm that is savvy, radical, and successful.

They have never looked back.

We met Anne at our Farmers Market, and I grabbed a beautiful flower she was selling – a Columbine – for $12. She also sold us the purple iris I’ve been photographing all week. We see her and her other son Krisstoffer.

I’m dazzled by what it means to be a “Diversified Farm;” what a great idea in the era of the struggling family farm.

Hickory Wind Farm sells Heritage Grains, Hay and Straw, Pure Maple Syrup, Lumber and Sawmilling, Perennial Plants,  Metal Fabrication and beautiful flowers, I get a different one each week.

I bought this Columbine plant from Anne for $12 today. You’ll be seeing a lot of it here.

Anne and her family are impressive, more dreamers whose dreams are coming true.

She is also a delightful human being to get to know. I greatly admire this new spirit in the country, people who crave a life closer to nature and animals (she has six horses) and a wonderful family and has found a new way to make her dream of a life on a farm (her grandparents had a farm) come true.

I am very much enjoying my policy of only taking portraits of good people I admire. You can’t take a bad picture of a person you like. And it feels good.