Before you pack up your bags and head down the winding roads to Milwaukee allow me to tell you the story of the silly white girl on the farm. Muhammed Ali once said, “A rooster only crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.”

Muhammed Ali sure did sum up all my thoughts on my conquest to Milwaukee. For one thing, the theory about roosters crowing at the break of dawn is true, I can confirm it. For another thing, it might have been the chickens or the experience, but landing in a farm was a wake-up call.

You might be wondering why on God’s green Earth was I on a farm in the middle of Milwaukee instead of recreating a scene from “Spring Breakers.” It’s a long story. A lot of people use college as a fresh start -- a way to get away from home, make new friends, drink a lot of beer, and never see anyone from their high school again. This experience was a little different for me, considering I chose to go to college exactly 34 miles away from my parents’ house, a good population of the campus went to high school with me, and you’d have to travel over an hour to get to the nearest party.

I wasn’t exactly your typical just-out-of-high-school and can’t-wait-for-move-in-day girl. I didn’t even know when the first day of school was until I remembered there was some book we were supposed to read over the summer. “Some book” ended up being a book that would almost, key word almost, be a bigger wake-up call than the roosters in Milwaukee. It was called, "The Good Food Revolution." Will Allen, the author, quits his high-up position at Proctor and Gamble and buys a farm on West Silver Spring Drive in Milwaukee. People are experiencing a divorce from their food; they don’t care where it came from, what it looks like, what it went through to get on their plate, as long as it’s ,convenient and this lit a fire in Will Allen that would never die. People from around the world visit his urban farm, Growing Power, to learn how to create a sustainable lifestyle. Will Allen is the reason I don’t go through the drive-thru every morning to get the healthiest thing on the McDonald's menu --an Egg McMuffin -- anymore. He’s also the reason I drove six hours and 22 minutes to Growing Power so I could make-up the divorce I was having with my food.

So, here I was in a city I’d never been to before, entering a culture I’d never been around before, and with people whom I’d never seen before, ready for my first day on the farm.

As soon as the first rooster did its thing, the whole place was up and at em’. I guess you could take one look at me and tell I did not use this because a little Asian harvesting bean sprout took one look at me and squeaked out two words, “You tired!” He got a real chuckle out of that one. Growing Power has people from all different cultures working for their movement and the little Asian could get twice, if not three times, the amount of work done I could without breaking a sweat. Wake up call #23,354,656.

Here I was, spending my spring break on a farm ready to take on the makings of salad. I will never look at a salad the same way again. If you Google, “how to make a salad” the first result will tell you very confidently, “Use your hands or two large spoons to gently turn the greens over in the bowl until they're well coated. Taste a leaf and add a little oil, vinegar, salt, or pepper until the salad is seasoned correctly. Serve the salad immediately or the dressing will cause it to wilt.” I’m here to tell you this is bull crap. I’ll give you the real instructions on how to make a salad.

First, you’re going to need compost. So, roughly, three to eight months before you eat your salad you’re going to need to think about making your compost. This requires working with a shovel, which I had never done before in my lifeguard days. Again, I guess you could take one look at me and tell I’ve barely touched a shovel in my life because the native Milwaukee boys who have been at this sustainability thing since Growing Power opened in 1993 decided to play a trick on the silly white girl on a farm. They would yell at me multiple times, “Use your back to shovel!” I learned the next day, you should never use your back to shovel -- or do anything. Very funny, boys.

Second, you need to make sure the soil is 70 degrees. Have fun figuring that one out.

Third, you’ll need to pick out at least 10 different types of seeds that will grow ideally in your environment. Those 10 might not even work so be prepared for failure after three to eight months of waiting for your salad.

Fourth, you’ll have to start your seed.

Fifth, you have to make sure your plants don’t get stressed out by keeping their soil moist. This requires working every day, yes, even the weekends so if you aren’t ready for the commitment you aren’t ready for salad.

Sixth, did you think we left climate in step two and never thought about it again? Wrong. When it’s colder than your salad likes you’ll need to warm it up and when it’s too hot you’ll need to cool it down. It’s not as easy as putting a blanket on or jumping in a pool, either. It rained a few times while I was at Growing Power. Don’t bother doing your hair, makeup, or dressing well before working on a farm because you’ll be tracking dirt with you everywhere you go for at least a week after. A few times after I returned home, my mother would scold me for leaving dirt on the toilet seat. Don’t ask me how dirt got there, I have no idea, it just did.

Seventh, wow, months later, you’re ready to harvest!

Eighth, yeah, sorry we aren’t done. If you really want to make another salad, that’s a whole another nine or 10 steps. Maybe you can catch that in my next story. There’s always more work to do and if you aren’t ready for the work, you aren’t ready for the challenging but rewarding sustainable lifestyle which another worker, a lot older than I made clear when she said, “I don’t care how slow a person works, I don’t care how short a time a person works, or what kind of work they are doing, as long as they are working hard, they are welcome.” These words, I will carry with me in a special spot in my mind.

You want salad dressing? More steps. You want croutons? More steps. You want eggs? More steps. Humans complain about childbirth, but you should see these chickens go to work. I was collecting over 400 eggs a day, which was my favorite part of the day. Growing Power gave the white silly girl on the farm the nickname, “Chicken Lady” for my time there. Collecting eggs was a time to take a break from shoveling. I would be stupid to not want to be the Chicken Lady on the farm.

Bacon bits? More steps.

Not only did I learn that committing to making a salad is harder than committing to a high school boyfriend, a new scrapbooking hobby, or flossing every day; I also learned that there is a certain kind of freedom and joy you feel when you live a sustainable lifestyle. You can compare it to a toddler who just took the training wheels off his bike for the first time. You don’t fall down to your knees at the sight of a drive-thru, you don’t spend too much time browsing the frozen food section, and you don’t have to worry about starving if a zombie apocalypse were to ever happen because you have all the skills you need to feed yourself.

The point is, I’ll never look at salad the same way again. Thank you Milwaukee, for allowing me to see the light.