September Second Ode to the Worker Share Farm work may be considered by some to be highly undesireable. Much of the work we do is done out in the elements. We work in rain, wind, dust, heat and even the bitter cold. On harvest days the work needs to get done no matter what. While […]
August Twenty-Sixth Sweet corn is just one of the many crops we grow on the farm, but it is undoubtedly a fan favorite. Sweet corn grown in season, picked at peak ripeness and coming directly from your CSA farm certainly is a welcome treat. This tricky crop is a little harder to grow that you […]
August Nineteenth The farm began as an amateurs ideal and dream to work for ourselves, raise a family in the country, and become surrounded by good, clean food that we had raised ourselves and that would nurture our bodies and sustain our hearts. The decision to become farmers was also about a retreat back to […]
August Twelfth The summer bounty inspires festivity, celebration, feasting, sharing and reveling in some of our favorite summer crops that we wait almost all year for. The sight of a ripening tomato on my windowsill with the kitchen window left open and a sweet summer breeze blowing in brings me a sense of summer joy […]
August Fifth To some people a bunch of kale is just a bunch of kale. A bag of green beans is a bag of green beans and the meaning ends there. A head of lettuce is a head of lettuce. Tomato-Tomáto. Potato-Potáto. Right? Well…maybe not.There’s Kathy sporting her awesome Small Family Farm Worker Share T-shirt […]
July Twenty-Nineth We are at a shifting point in the season now. The weather is in the upper 80’s and 90’s, the calendar soon turns over to August and the first of the tomatoes are plucked from the vines. The sweet corn is tasseling, the peppers are anxiously awaiting their first blush and the green […]
The dinner table is fine place to be thankful. In our ever-quickening lives with so much to do, so much to remember, and so many commitments to meet, it is a short and brief pause in our day that gives us an opportunity to be present with the ones we love the most. The dinner […]
July Fifteenth Even with plenty of rain on the farm this summer (so far), there comes a time each season when irrigation becomes an un-avoidable job. Farmer Adam is our irrigation specialist. Last Fall he advocated to the board (me) that our farm was due for advances in our irrigation set up. The Onion Beds Our […]
July Eighth This is our tenth season running our CSA, filing schedule F and really making a go for it as farmers. We’ve survived two seasons with serious droughts and two seasons with floods. No season has been quite like this one as of yet. This season has been mild, comfortable, and almost text book […]
July First Ring the Bell that can RingLacinato Kale growing on the plant and looking healthy! Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in At some point in time, something really interesting happened in the produce industry. I’m not sure when or where, but it was long […]
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 […]