POTATOES!
It all came together with potatoes.
And started with human chess. Matt and Jessamine met at their dear friend, Blake’s, epic birthday party on a hillside in 2023, as literal pawns in her life-sized game of chess. There was a spark of magic that night, but Minnow never imagined dating a farmer, and Matt knew she wasn’t available. So they got to know each other and became fast friends, along with a really excellent group of people from that night.
When Minnow neglected to invite Matt to her eclipse party in 2024, he swallowed his pride and still invited her to his dinner party at Winterfound (the farm he’s rehabilitated, grown, and loved for the last four years). They found themselves the last two people in the hot tub, chatting to the sounds of tree frogs. As Minnow was finally leaving, they encountered a spotted salamander in the grass, and Matt took it as an omen and asked her out. Still in the midst of an on-again-off-again relationship, she wasn’t quite feeling it .
Fast forward another year, and Minnow and Matt (single, but safely in the friend zone) came up with a plan to help Matt get his potatoes harvested. They would throw a potato party, and invite friends to come dig potatoes and cook up a feast.
The party was a big success, and after harvesting all of the potatoes, they ate french fries with tallow from Matt’s beef, baked potatoes topped with bacon from Matt’s pigs, mashed potatoes, and hash browns.
A network and an ethic for helping each other out in their group of friends was formed that day, along with another bond.
At the end of the night, after their wonderful crew of friends had gone home full of potatoes, Matt and Minnow finished cleaning up. They talked about dating, and Matt wondered to her about his flirting style, to which she responded that he did have a “brotherly vibe.”
Despite this slight, they continued sitting around the fire, reveling in the joy of the day, chatting and chatting. Something shifted. Minnow saw Matt in another light: they were a great team, there was a deep connection...
The next day, Matt checked in about that brotherly vibe. Minnow was cornered. She had to admit she felt something more. And then it was like flood gates opening. They could not stop talking, and could not get enough of each other. Nothing had ever felt so right.
AND HERE WE ARE!
A year later, and these two are in the midst of building a beautiful and very full life together. Matt proposed while skiing in the arctic circle in Sweden, and a whirlwind of dreaming, planning, and building began. Still farming at Winterfound, renovating and renting houses in Vermont and New York, grazing cattle, gardening and consulting , and traveling back and forth between their respective homes, they now have 75 acres of gorgeous raw land and a 1700s house moved from New Hampshire. Check out the registry page for more about these projects. They are looking forward with great excitement to this wedding and moving in together afterwards—since that’s the proper order of things.
