June Twenty Fourth Happy Solstice friends! Summer has finally arrived! It isn’t officially dark until about 9:30 and the days feel long. With temperatures popping their heads above 80 degrees now on a more regular basis our summer crops are beginning to take off. The tomato plants are getting trellised the zucchini harvest will begin […]
June Seventeenth Do you ever wonder who we are? Who are these ambitious kids who deliberately plant themselves in the middle of the countryside and devote themselves to growing organic vegetables? Who would do such a thing? Who would want such a life of servitude? What fuels their motivation? In a world with so much […]
June Tenth Maybe you’ve heard, but farming is a lot of work. It is not only time, but serious labor as well-particularly organic vegetable farming. The little box of vegetables you pick up each week is not just a little box of vegetables; it’s a little box of love. If you love something, you put […]
June Third The start of the season this year feels like a reunion. It feels like a joyous stroll down a country road on an antique bicycle. Handling fresh food again after a long, cold winter somehow brings life back into my bones. Even the bending and the lifting and the moving that is part […]
June Eighth We are a small family of farmers. Adam and I are newly wedded after building the Small Family Farm for 5 seasons together. After 5 years of pulling thread-like weeds out of an ocean-like field and safely planting baby-like plants into a Chicago-like landscape and harvesting meager-like crops from our endless-like efforts we […]
October Fifteenth Restoration A farmer needs a winter. Needs one like a day needs a night, like a bird needs a nest, like a plant needs rain or a seed needs soil. A farmer needs a rest, a period of time-if even just a short period where she can go inward and downward and deep […]
October Eighth Adam Comes Home It’s every back-to-the-landers dream to be able to someday live and work on their land and earn their living from their land. After 8 years of dreaming of this idea, wondering if the farm could support our family, wondering if we had what it took to earn our living off […]
October First Gone Solar! For me, the farm began as a romantic, back-to-the-land dream. It began as a vision in my head where we would work for ourselves, we would work outside in the fresh air with only the open sky over our heads. I dreamt of raising children on a farm where they could […]
September Twenty-Fourth The journey of eating from a CSA box for one complete season is truly an experience to be had. Not only from a CSA box, but within the seasons while honoring our regional offerings. I find the experience to be emotional and spiritual and ethical. I’ve become a hopeless locavore, devoutly loyal to […]
September Seventeenth Fall has unofficially arrived. In the second half of last week we were amazed with cooler temperatures in the morning. For the first time this season the workers showed up with wool hats and sweaters and all kinds of protective clothing. We were c-c-c-cold out there from spending the summer in our sandals […]
September Tenth All of this food, all of this Midwestern bounty, all of this richness! It’s hard to believe that with so much abundance that it could ever end. It’s hard to imagine an earth so generous and outpouring and substantial, that it could just one day stop giving. Now buried in Tomatoes, what will […]
September Third It has been quite the summer for vegetable growing in the Midwest. With the later Spring that we had this year we were a little behind getting started this Spring. It didn’t take long for the vegetables to catch up though with so many optimal growing degree days of less than 86 degrees […]
August Twenty-Seventh You know when you get talking with a friend about an old song, an old TV show or an old car you once had? I had one of those moments in the field the other day where I sort of felt like I was getting older. I know you’re probably rolling your eyes […]
August Twentieth Do you ever open up your CSA box and wonder why some of the vegetables inside don’t look quite like what you’re used to seeing at the grocery store? Do you look at your peppers or your tomatoes and wonder why they’re shaped so funny or look so much different than what you’re […]
August Thirteenth Our farm has a unique way of getting the work done. We have Adam and I, two Full-time employees, and a team of over 30 worker-shares who work a 3 and a half hour shifts each week in exchange for their CSA box. It’s an impressive assembly of community members who work in […]
August Sixth What a pleasant summer it has been. I did hear the cicadas crying out a few times, but I’m pretty sure they’re just testing out their capabilities. Cicadas only really love to do their spirited song on the hottest hours of a summer day. I can’t say that I really miss the Cicada […]
July Thirtieth I feel like I owe a tribute to my husband. I write all of these newsletters and I answer most of the e-mails and I’m the person you’ll get to work with if you come to the farm any day out of the week. I’m the face and the personality of the farm, […]
July Twenty Third The intensity of the summer has a way of stripping us of our layers. We enter the season in the spring well rested, with our homes and lives organized, and our thoughts even somewhat still, structured, prepared and grounded. The season begins with days slowly lengthening. We’re eased with near trickery into […]
July Sixteenth When I was a young farm hand on a small farm here in the Driftless area, I worked on a farm one summer that raised eggs and Winter Squash for Organic Valley. The farm family I was working for wasn’t a religious family, but their values and principles were clear. Everyone in the […]
July Nineth There is farming. And there is farming with children. Two very different life experiences. As everyone knows, life with children in general is a whole new ball game. Adam and I were fortunate enough to have a few years together building our farm’s foundation, building the business and spreading the good word about […]