By Rachel Heller and Esra Mahgoub

“[My farm] was in  Northern Baltimore County. We had three acres; we had goats, steers, horses, and chickens. You had to get up early, because we had to feed all the animals before we went to school. It was dark. We had a small little barn so that was a responsibility, everybody had to take responsibility because we had pets too, cats and dogs too, so everybody in the family had a responsibility for maintaining the farm and doing things. We had big gardens because we had vegetables too, we had two vegetable gardens that were half the size of a football field. They were very big, and it was our requirement, especially in the summer time when we didn’t have school, was to weed and check the progress of  water if necessary. There was a lot of responsibilities and chores to do.

I couldn’t say that there was a favorite memory. I can tell you what I didn’t like to do, and that was weed the green beans, because the beans were so close to the same color as the weeds. It was frustrating, it was tiresome.

I would cook. If I didn’t have to be outside, cooking was my favorite thing. When the fair time would come around, we would cook, bake, and do other things to help.”