October ThirdHarvesting Broccoli I have fallen into a place of routine. I’m not sure if it’s my age, my stage in life, or my zodiac sign or enniagram, but I value the stability of a day and a home and a farm that runs smooth with the essence of constancy, sustainability and predictability. Well oil, […]
September Twenty-Sixth A heavy frost settled over the farm on Saturday and Sunday night. The frost brings determined closure to some crops on the farm that can no longer survive with lows in the 30’s. We loose some of our warm weather favorites like basil and tomatoes, but our beloved fall spinach, kale, carrots and broccoli […]
September 19th One of the major benefits of belonging to a CSA farm is that when the ‘gettin’ is good’, there is a lot to be gotten. The CSA boxes are heavy and colorful and full of scents and textures that will delight or entertain almost all of our senses. We begin to feel rich […]
September Twelfth The winds of Fall blew onto the farm this week. It feels a little like taking a nap in the middle of the day and waking up slightly disoriented. The days have suddenly become shorter in a way that doesn’t feel fair. I sometimes think that someone is laundering time from me. Like […]
September Fifth My neighborhood is wonderful. I love the people who live on the farm and farmettes around me. I love the rolling hillside, the cold water that comes from 350ft deep below ground level and spills out of my kitchen tap, and the gusty winds that blow in from the west on our tiny […]
August Twenty-Nineth Harvest season is in full force on the farm. It feels like we are spending almost every day harvesting something which is leaving very little time left over for weeding or for harvesting and cleaning storage crops. We’re almost non stop picking cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes every-other-day. We’re harvesting green beans […]
August Twenty-Second It seems to be the way of our times today to move very quickly, become very successful and lead productive lives. I understand this concept very clearly and almost to a fault some days. Even on a farm where we are literally surrounded with food, it can be difficult to find the time […]
August Fifteenth In all of the years that we’ve been farming, none have been like this one. I’m not talking about the long drought or the intese heat this time, I’m referring to my frame of mind and our level of progress as farmers. This may be the first season ever, in my career as […]
August Eighth It’s high tide at the Small Family Farm. All systems are in peak production. The ball that we’ve been pushing up hill all Spring and Early Summer has reached the top and is now beginning to roll back down the hill. It is gaining momentum and there is no stopping it now. The […]
August First It takes a very special kind of person who succeeds in farming. The lifestyle is such that it demands more from you on a daily bases than what you have to give. Your job is to keep things alive, be it animals or plants. In an ideal world, a good farmer would have […]
July Twenty-Fifth Ode to the Worker Shares Do you ever wonder how we get it all done? When there are only 24 hours in a day and no way to negotiate with the gods for more time? The Small Family Farm is run by a small family, of course, but also with the help of […]
July Eighteenth A blessed 1/2 inch of rain fell on our farm early Sunday morning. While the farm is now on life support (irrigation), it gave us a reprieve from the hustle of filling the irrigation tank, laying out lines and pumping the water. The stress-o-meter went down a couple notches Sunday morning and our […]
July Eleventh I know that there are a few of you out there who are opening up your CSA box each week and you’re pulling out these bunches of collards, kale and swiss chard, and you’re thinking to yourself, “what am I supposed to do with this?”. This newsletter is dedicated to those of you, […]
July Fifth The dog days of summer have arrived. They have brought with them the worst drought that we have ever experienced on our farm in the seven years that we have been running our CSA program. Our brows are sweating and we’re a little nervous about the long term affects the heat and dry […]
June Twenty-Ninth Have you eaten up that kohlrabi yet? How about the fennel? Or, those collards, did you like those? How receptive is your household and your stomachs to all of these new foods that are (hopefully) making it onto your dinner plates. Are you embracing the adventurous culinary spirit within? If the funky items from […]
June Twentieth The longest days of the year are here. My body knows this very well. We sleep with the windows open at night and the sunlight and bird-songs come creeping in the window all too early for a tired farmer’s body. The chickens are photo-sensitive animals who, when not fooled by artifical lighting, reach […]
June Thirteenth I was once asked by an interviewer for a newspaper shortly after we bought the farm how I felt about moving into a vocation that is so deeply dependant on weather pattern and with the idea that climate change is here, how was that going to affect our success as farmers. It was […]
June Sixth Once upon a time, it was a young girl’s dream to be a farmer. Raised in a river-city in the heart of the midwest, she was born to a German-Irish family that instilled a rip-snapping work ethic, wrinkle-ironing social manners and a lick-your-plate-clean sort of appreciation for food into her that she would […]
More Pictures embedded in all of the archived newsletters. Browse through our newsletters from previous years to read about the season and catch a glimps of the times! Basil plants ready for transplantingBeautiful bunches of beets w/ greensFarmer Jillian in Tomato land!Jillian and Adam as American GothicRutabaga washed and readyNeatly cultivated brassica […]
October Nineteenth Congratulations, you’ve officially become a Locavore! You’ve eaten your way through the Spring, Summer and Fall of an entire Midwestern growing season. You’ve learned how to identify the appropriate season in which certain vegetables are grown. You’ve finally warmed up to zucchini, gotten creative with a bag of tomatoes and tried at least […]