Hello, Friend!
How are you? Are you well?
Is the season treating you wonderfully? Growing you, learning you, calling you home to yourself?
It’s been a bit since I’ve been able to pop in here and so I’d like to share a bit about why I’ve been MIA with a good ol’ Shown, Unshown catch up post 🙂
Shown
- Spring is springing! The orchard is in bloom (a bit early but we’re ever hopeful), the raspberries are all cut back and beginning to bring forth this year’s leaves, and the garlic is healthy. The acequia is running and so we’re prepping beds, starting seeds, and deciding on larger crops.
- All three of our mama goats have kidded! Mama gave us two bucks and one doe, Lucy gave us two does, and Ethel delivered two bucks very early leaving us with only a sole preemie buck (with a ~10% chance of survival) to care for. Luckily, the other kids are healthy and our preemie (dubbed Little Guy by Ember) is now six-weeks old and thriving. Having a super sick House (and therefore occasional Office) Goat was no joke but he’s now a Barn Goat and we get to, once again, sleep through the night! (Nothing like midnight feedings to make this woman feel especially old and exhausted 😉 )
- We’ve added five Olive Egger chicks to our farm this spring and are psyched to get a few more green eggs in the basket by the end of summer. After much debate, we’ve also added eight Blue Slate Turkeys to the tally for the spring, because, as you know if you’ve been around for a while, I believe firmly that there’s nothing better than a truly local Thanksgiving Dinner!
- There are not one, not two, but THREE mama ducks all setting clutches right now. Fingers are crossed for successful sitting and hatching over the next couple of months followed by copious amounts of fluffy butt pictures!
- In sad news, we had to put down our beloved old dog, Mr. He gave us a marvelous 14-year run and we miss him deeply. The other dogs haven’t quite figured out how to navigate the world without him yet and so we’re doing our best to help them through while we face our own waves of grief.
- While not a Fix-All, fresh baked sourdough bread, freshly strained tinctures, pushing seeds into soil, and full egg baskets are quite the magical balms for these weary hearts.
Unshown
It’s been a heart-wrenching season already filled with ups, downs, and pure exhaustion which has led us to re-evaluate where we are, what our true capacity is, and if our bigger dreams need to be reassessed a bit as we navigate present time. From losing Mr to a very rough kidding season to the general farm struggles to balancing it all while trying to stay sane and present, it’s been a doozy. I don’t have all the answers but we have found a few and there is a whole lot of hope and a bit of change on the horizon.
But more on that later.
For now, I’m just going to leave you with a full heart, a few words I wrote in reflection about what this whole farming thing means to us, and a gentle reminder:
As first generation farmers, I won’t pretend that we don’t have moments where we question everything, that we don’t wonder why we’re doing what we’re doing on the farm…that we don’t worry about long-term sustainability or about building our customer base or the ever-changing market for agricultural products.
But we believe that this farm life we’ve chosen is good, so very good, even when it is hard. We believe that deep gratitude for life and for the land we walk upon, cultivate and sustain ourselves from and that none of it, not for one second, should be taken for granted.
Farming, for us, is built on the foundation of belief that small scale diversified farms play an important role in saving our environment and our communities in the face of catastrophic climate uncertainty. We believe in knowing, intimately, from seed to harvest to plate, what goes into the food that goes into our bodies, whether that food is raised on our own property or within our local food system.
Contrary to romanticized belief, farming isn’t all beautiful abundance & naps in sun-dappled shade. It’s back-breaking work that is largely undervalued in our society & it is the heart & soul, the literal bread & butter of our lives, and I am just so grateful to be a part of it all.
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I wish you the loveliest of Aprils and I hope to see you again very soon, Friend.
xoxo,
M
