Blueberries are one of the most nutritious fruits, so maybe it’s no surprise that the one person on campus to grow and sell them is school nurse Emily Mikeska. 

Nine years ago, Mikeska’s family land in Livingston turned into C&M Farm, a place to promote health and make use of the abundance of land they have.

“We just one day decided that we had all this land, we should try to grow something on it,” Mikesa said. “We were at some little festival one day and we noticed blueberries and someone was saying that they really grew great in that area, so we thought well we should try it and then I was like like oh my goodness blueberries are great for health and it’s the great new antioxidant kind of thing that they’re promoting, so we said sure let’s try it.”

Each year Mikeska and her husband, better known as Blueberry Dave, maintain their farm and post videos of the status of their blueberries on their farm’s Facebook page.

“We have a blueberry dave person and it’s actually my husband,” Mikeska said. “He does little video snippets on our facebook page for the farm. He tries to make them very humorous and so he’s developed quite fun following of people who thinks he’s just funny about little comments he makes about the blueberries, so he has a great time doing it and it certainly you know attracts people and things like that. We want it to feel like it’s a fun place to come and visit.”

For most people picking up blueberries means a trip to the local store or farmers market, but for social studies teacher Tim Johannes it was nothing more than a trip to the nurses office.

“Last year, Nurse Mikeska brought me some blueberries from her farm and she goes hey come on in here I have something for you to try and she pulls out this carton of blueberries,” Johannes said. “They were the biggest, fattest, juiciest blueberries that you’ve ever seen and they were fresh right from her farm. They were amazing, I mean they were the best blueberries I’ve ever had.”

Future plans for C&M Farm include a storefront, but whatever additions they may make, nothing will change Mikeska’s favorite part about having a farm.

“My favorite part is that they’re fun and easy to grow,” Mikeska said. “I love being outside and working on them. The country air and being out there it’s just really amazing. It’s just quiet and peaceful. When the people come out, it’s just so fun to kind of do something, do an activity where you can just pick fruit off of a plant or a bush and then you know you get to eat it right away or whatever.”

Mikeska is also hoping to expand her farm with different crops in the future, such as blackberries and a pumpkin patch in the fall.

C&M Farm opens Monday.