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“Are you open?”  Big eyes, small stature, hands on hips.

“Yes.”

“Like, everything?”  Her eyes slide to the left, looking to the swing set and play structure Farmer Bob and Brother Ed put up last year.

“Yes, like totally everything.  And you’re our first customer ….”

“Awesome!MsLauracanIpleasehaveChocolateAnarchyI’llbeoverontheswiiiiiiiings…!!!”, leaving a trail of dust behind her.

Like so many of our farm visitors this week, this girl was suffering from a troubling and newly-identified syndrome, SFD, a.k.a severe fun deficit.   Not away from her house for eight weeks.  No farm fresh ice cream, no friends, no Chocolate Safe Space, no Purple Haze, no play dates, no dinner out with her family, no playgrounds, no swings.

I debated whether we should open the farm, and if we opened the farm, whether we should also open the really fun parts.  Farmer Bob gave me “the Look”, and shared a pointed screed about what is wrong with the world, the kind of thinking that contributes to the wrong-ness, winding up with an “I can’t believe you are agonizing over this.  Of COURSE we should open the farm.  People need farm fresh ice cream!”

So I did, and it has been great.  Great to see many friends, many customers, who’ve been gone from our life for months.  Great to catch up, to see how some people have changed, and some are exactly the same person they were before “The Lockdown.”  It’s been especially great, and gratifying, too, to provide an opportunity for people to stretch out, to run around with their kids, to be in a place with endless room, lots of farm fresh ice cream, and no noticeable schedule.  “And most importantly, no rules”, says Farmer Bob, “at least, none but mine.”

He points out that the farm can swallow 75,000 people (well, at least 1,000!) easily while not violating any social distancing, including in the ice cream line.  People don’t even really have to think about it, it just comes naturally at a place like Fisher Brothers Farm.

Eventually my first customer, expert swinger, had to go.  “Bye!” she says, skipping past.

“This was awesome.”