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 the sunny Caribbean coast? Do they sleep in until noon dreaming of juicy tomato and sweet corn harvests?
Let the truth be unveiled! We DO drink hot chocolate (but not all day). We DO eat our stashed nuts (but we can’t seem to get fat). We DO catch airplanes to the sunny Caribbean coast (well, we used to do that before we had small children). And we DO sleep in, until like 7:30 sometimes (if our children let us)! We have the bad habit of still checking the weather at least three times a day on our favorite weather websites.
We’re really catching some slack around here. No the truth is, we’re hard-wired to a certain beat, a tempo, a pace. We’ve been busy selling off the rest of our storage vegetables that keep a trickle of income coming in for the farm. Adam worked his last full week of work for Organic Valley last week and, it’s official folks, he is now a full-time farmer! Yee Haw! We’re very excited about this and all of his girls are happy to have him home. We feel so blessed. So blessed.
Our new daughter who was born on November 12th is now a healthy and plump 2-month old. Winter is an important time for a farm family to nurture their bond. When the days are shorter and colder, we cozy together in the house over library books, chicken noodle soup and new baby coos and gurgles.
Recent days have been keeping us busy solidifying new Pick-Up Locations (Dubuque and Madison members will notice that we have a few new dropsites with more in the works). We’ve been repairing and improving our existing farm equipment and dreaming of future equipment that will improve efficiency on the farm. Farmer Adam still talks of ways to improve irrigation on the farm while I sit back and be thankful he’s so interested in subjects such as these. Irrigation is an expensive and sophisticated subject that I’m glad that he ‘mans’.
At present, the living room is filling up with seed catalogs and tupperware containers with our seeds. We are talking about seed varieties that have worked well for us and thinking of trying new varieties on many of our crops. Soon we will have our 2015 marketing materials in print and will begin distributing fliers and spreading the really awesome word about the Small Family Farm CSA. Our website is now updated with 2015 Share Options and Prices which means that Sign-Up Season is here!
Comparatively, winter is restful, restorative and renewing for farmers. We are reflective of what we have learned in our past experiences as farmers and we excited to take our experience and knowledge in farming and apply it to our 10th season in CSA farming. We want to invite you to join us again and renew your membership in our farm. Spring is only a few short months away and we’ll all be stuffing our bellies with Strawberries and sweet peas before we know it. Sign Up Today!
