—Chris PawelskiI grew up on the family onion farm but left it for college, graduate school, and then moved to Wisconsin after I was married to my wonderful wife Eve (married in 1990). After being married and living 3 years in Wisconsin we moved back to NYS and my family farm in 1993. By 1995 I was farming near full-time (also teaching communication studies and public speaking part time at my local community college).
The house we live in was the house my dad grew up in and where my grandmother lived till she passed away. Our barns and equipment is on this property. My parents still live in the house i grew up in, next door (separated by onion fields).
That year we had a garden, which you can see in the photo. The garden is no longer there, the yard was filled in, so this picture is a nice snapshot in time.
I now farm full-time and my father and brother and I grow about 100 acres of onions. I also do extensive public policy and media work in behalf of my farming community. You can check out my blog: http://muckville.com, my twitter page: https://twitter.com/ChrisPawelski and the homepage for my new public policy/advocacy organization that represents the interests of specialty crop farmers, Farmroot: http://www.farmroot.org.
I've also written a yet to be published memoir that details our life and struggles on the farm over the years, called "Muckville: a memoir of the public policy life of a farmer."