Winter unofficially ended on our farm this week. The snow is beginning to melt. The maple sap is running. The birds are singing (loudly!) Onions are being seeded and there is smoke coming out of of the greenhouse chimney. It is beginning to look, sound and smell like Spring everywhere!
At the end of every growing season we enter the winter season feeling completely drained of energy and enthusiasm for farming. We’re ready for winter in every sense of the word and we go inward on a deep level. I sometimes even worry if our passion for what we do will become restored. All systems are completely shut down. But we order our seeds and we make our field plans. We repair our equipment and we market our shares. And as if by some miracle, with the thawing of the ice, our bones thaw as well. With the dripping of the sap, like an I.V. into the veins of the farm itself, we come alive again. Even our passion and love for what we do is restored. I feel excited again for another growing season in a way I could not imagine the previous fall.
I am hungry for cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and even zucchinis sound like a luxury right now. Tender spring greens excite me crispy spring radishes are motivating to me. Sharing the experience of a growing season with a community of CSA members like you breathes life in our efforts in way no other vocation that I can imagine could. Even after 16 years of CSA farming, I’m still in love. Like a good marriage, it works for us.
CSA shares are selling faster than ever before with less marketing effort. We’re preparing for a strong growing season. We’re lining up our crew of workers for the season, filling up the fuel barrel, greasing up the equipment and repairing all that is needed to keep the farm alive and strong.
New this season we are offering Flower Shares! We have a friend of the farm, their name is Buho, who will be growing a variety of flowers here on our farm and providing a limited number of Flower Shares over a 5 or 10 week period. If Flower Shares interest you, sign up soon for one as there are only 13 left to sell. They are very limited. I’m excited to have flowers growing on the farm!
We are also making plans to go 100% solar on the farm this summer. We had an 7.5 kw system installed in the fall of 2014, but we put in a walk-in cooler and grew our farm business in the summer of 2016 which increased our electricity usage. This summer we will install an 11.56 kw system which will make our farm 100% solar powered going into the future. We will be working with Ethos Solar out of Viroqua, WI. We’re very excited about this!
Our three children are growing taller and smarter every day (ages 3, 6 an 9). We have a new yellow lab puppy on the farm, Leche, who is 10 weeks old. Puppies are a LOT of work, phew! He’s very cute, which helps with forgiveness in all of his “puppy behaviors”. Sadly we lost our old farm dog, Mugzie after 12 years this winter. Leche has big shoes to fill as Mugzie was an all-star farm dog in every way! He had a pretty good life here on the farm and we’re so thankful for our time with him.
I wanted to send an e-mail just to stay connected and let you all know that we’re excited for another growing season! I say it again and again how honored we are be doing this work. We feel fortunate and privileged to have such a strong community of supporters like you that keep us doing the work we love.
Sign Up Season is in full swing! Sign up to reserve your CSA Share for the 2021 growing season now if you haven’t already!
