First a little housekeeping; we are closing in on the end of the main season; including this weeks vegetables, there are two pickups left. If you have any of our gray totes, please make a special effort to make sure your totes get returned to the farm/market this week and next.
Today a little detour from the regular farm news to step back and get the bigger picture of how the farm supports the farmers. We love our vocation. We love early mornings, sunshine, breezes, and great soil. We are still thrilled with the miracle of seeds germinating and growing into tomatoes, carrots, snapdragons, and so many other varieties. We feel blessed to get to do this work, even when it's twenty degrees and snowing sideways, or 99 degrees with 80% humidity (mostly ;-)). But the risk of doing what you love, and living on a farm, is that you never reach the end of the to do list. there's never a time when we say " well, that's the end of the work, nothing left to do here..." instead, we have to be intentional about drawing lines that help us balance our lives. In the winter this is easier than the summer; the cold weather pushes us inside, and there is only so much we can do in the greenhouses. We end up working shorter days, and have more time to hang out with a good book in front of the fire, cook a slow meal, spend time with family, or even head out to tropical destinations (last year I went with two of my daughters and my dad to Honduras, to snorkel, run whitewater, and explore different cultures, and Kimby went to Zanzibar with her family for some well deserved time with friends). But in the heat of the season, from March to October, the farm is a whiny toddler, constantly needing attention, whether it's weeding, seeding, harvesting, moving the sprinklers one more time, or repairing a walk-in cooler, there is always something that feels urgent. As a result, we can find ourselves devoting every daylight minute to keeping the veggies and flowers growing, and severely neglect our families. To be sure, our families are tremendously supportive of our vocation, pitching in regularly to help get everything done, and taking on projects of their own (my daughter Anna trellised and pruned 700 greenhouse tomato plants a week this summer, and Emma planted and tended two beds of vegetables to donate to Ozarks Food Harvest), but they also need and want time devoted to them. The best way we have found to make sure this happens is to leave the farm, and head to the woods. We try to get off the farm for two weeks each growing season, and this September, we were super excited to get to take a seven day raft and kayak trip down the Salmon River in Idaho.
This is one of the most amazing wilderness canyons in the United States and the scenery is second to none. Clear water, steep canyon walls, and thrilling rapids combined for one of the most fun family expeditions we've undertaken. I mention all this to thank you for being a part of this farm, for voting with your dollars for clean food, raised in a way that supports a healthy planet, an equitable income for the farmers, and work-life balance for all of us. We appreciate you, and we love sending all the fresh veggies and flowers out the door each week, and we are honored that you trust us to provide excellent food for your table.
Thanks,
Curtis, Sarah, Kimby, and the rest of the crew.
