Harvest Hosts - Aspire Brewing, Middletown NY

I didn’t get much sleep due to the constant interstate noise, struggling to fall asleep and waking around 2:00 a.m. to the same steady roar. Scotty, however, slept well—I could hear him snoring—and was up by 7:00 while I dragged myself out of bed.

Our mission for the day was visiting my parents’ gravesite. We stopped at Home Depot for ornamental grasses, and I had already prepared artificial flower arrangements in cone vases.  At the cemetery, a caretaker drove us to Section 27 since we weren’t sure of the exact plot. When I mentioned forgetting my clippers, he kindly offered to use his weed eater around the headstone and it looked SO much better. He also shared that the cemetery is maintained by only two and a half workers, with new hires starting at $8 an hour and often leaving for higher-paying jobs at McDonald’s. Afterward, we searched for my grandmother’s grave, which we had found listed online without a section number. The caretakers were mowing on the hill and I didn’t want to interrupt them again, so we decided we might find her resting place on another visit.

It made me reflect on overlooked work. I’m grateful for him, who clearly cares for the grounds despite the challenges, and as always, for Scotty, who dug into the hard ground so we could plant the grasses while I cleaned the headstone. My dad’s nameplate, darkened over time, looked only slightly brighter when we finished, but the gravesite felt cared for again, bringing me a sense of peace.

We got to our next harvest host, aspire brewing in Middletown New York. As promised, it is a very large parking lot Outside of aspire brewing just off the interstate.  The lot itself was not very level and there are no hook ups here but we knew that. We were prepared to use the generator if necessary, but Scotty only had to turn it on for 10 minutes in the morning to get it back up to 12 V.When we arrived there was a another couple Parking there Van we got to talking in the parking lot and realised we had a lot in common so we went to have dinner together. The brewery is absolutely huge and they have a very large selection of beers on tap as well as bottled beers with that large of a selection. We were able to find a hefeweisen that was good. I enjoyed my fish tacos and Scotty had a Philly cheesesteak, but even better was sitting with our newly acquired friends Tim and Diane. They are avid campers and are in fact camp host this summer at a small park in Massachusetts we slept only fairly well because in the middle of the night, we could hear the dumpsters being emptied in the trains once in while. But as I said, it’s a convenient stop as it’s right off the interstate.