July Second You know us farmers. We love to complain. We always have something to gripe about like how it’s too wet or too dry or too hot or too cold for the crops to grow. The buy price is too high, the sell price is too low. There needs to be just enough of […]
June Twenty-Fourth Greens! Greens are the healthiest food for you! If there was any part of you was slightly interested in developing new healthy habits by signing up for your CSA share this summer, this is your *green opportunity. Greens this summer are not only bountiful, but they are crunchier, more tender and more succulent than […]
June Seventeenth The behind the scenes of the farm would be fun for you to see. I sometimes wish we could get each of you to put on your old dirty work jeans, find an open day in your schedule and get down on the farm with us. We have a blast out here! We […]
June Eleventh An absolutely gorgeous week on the farm! Spring is Springing everywhere, the days are getting longer still and the Peonys, irises and roses are in blossom all around our home. The vegetables look lush and young and filled with potential. This Spring has been like one from a dream. We started out cool […]
June Fourth Welcome to the beginning of the 9th CSA growing season on the Small Family Farm. We’re honored to have you as a part of the growing season and to have your support, trust and faith as we gamble through yet another season as farmers, against the dealer of all dealers, the sky.Our four little […]
January Sixteenth What do your farmers do in the winter time? What do those lazy farmers do in the winter time? Inquiring minds want to know! Do they drink hot chocolate all day while warming their toes by the fire? Do they get fat on their stashed nuts? Do they catch a jet plane to […]
Small Family of Friends, Cookers and Eaters, A slumberous winter of record-breaking lows, awesome storms and copious precipitation has your farmers anxiously awaiting Spring. In my adult life, I cannot remember a winter so solid, so unsympathetic, so chilling. We are spending our late-winter days tabling at events, putting out fliers and finding creative ways […]
October Sixteenth The final Summer Share delivery is bittersweet. We are secretly very excited about our winter’s rest that lay within a foreseeable future, but also realize that we’re a bit like a fish out of water in the winter monthes. We have been working so hard this summer and have watched our hard work […]
October Nineth I am learning to do my work joyfully. It’s an easier time of year to enjoy ourselves throughout the day with a warm sun on our cheeks and a cool breeze in the air. The end is near and the finish feels good. There have been many days work on the farm that […]
October Second A farmer’s work is seasonal. We practice a lifestyle and a work with a pulse and a rhythm. It is a very interesting concept in a time when so few people are guided by the cycles of the seasons in their work. We all feel the seasons, but it cannot always be applied […]
September Twenty-Fifth The farm is falling down. With each gust of wind, each cool night, and each shortening day. The plants know that their time is limited and are all giving their last surge toward making seed to propagate their species, sending down roots deeper in the softened soil, and ripening their fruits and seeds […]
September Eighteenth There is a fight for food freedom going on in Wisconsin right now. Maybe you’ve heard about the raw-milk bill that is in the Wisconsin Senate. Their seems to be a growing number of people who wish for the right to know where their food is coming from, wish for it to be […]
September Eleventh I believe I have forgotten to mention one of the hardest workers on the farm. She’s been here as long as we’ve had the farm and has helped us through the muddiest, the heaviest, and the dirtiest of jobs. She pulls her weight one hundred times over each day we set to work, […]
September Fourth Bounty. The good earth is giving. Despite the drought this season, the land is fruitful. Because Adam has been working so hard this summer to keep the irrigation lines dripping, we have beautiful looking food right now-and lots of it! Because we finally got a little heat wave last week, our tomatoes and […]
August Twenty-Eighth I do my best to write about the beautiful side of the farm and keep the newsletters on the up beat so as to portray a beautiful image for you for where your food is coming from. The truth is that the farm is beautiful, the workers are happy and the food is […]
August Twenty-First The waning summer days have a way of sounding a bit like a ticking clock. Almost all wild and domestic plants are in fruiting and seeding stages. Nature knows that her time is limited. She knows that the warm days we are enjoying now are fleeting and her chances for reproduction are now. […]
August Fourteenth Sweet corn, melons and tomatoes oh my! The box this week is pretty “sweet” as we like to say. Our sweet and crunchy carrots, amazing melons and a surprising sweet corn harvest make the box interesting this week. Many thanks to our good ol farm dog, Mugzie, for protecting the sweet corn from […]
August Seventh We canned peaches this week. We bought a couple cases of organic peaches and attempted to preserve the summertime flavor of the sunny North Carolina. Every summer when we see the locals selling peaches and cherries and blueberries along the side of the road, there is a deep, child-like desire for a sweet, […]
July Thirty-First The harvesting is getting real now. The items that we are harvesting are heavy and solid and long awaited. Last week we began our garlic harvest. The life of garlic is a surprisingly difficult one. Kind of like a penguin- minus the migration part. Garlic is planted in the fall just before the […]
July Twenty-Fourth The heat is on folks! We survived a week’s worth of hot and muggy weather reaching up in the 90’s. The heat-loving plants like the peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, sweet corn and melons are thriving in the heat and humidity. If you were still enough, you could almost hear the plants growing last week […]