Winter Rest and Spring is Coming Quick

View from the top of the sledding hill

The end of the farming season is always bittersweet. I love growing food and seeing my shareholders every week, having workshops and being enfolded in community. But it was a non-stop spring, summer and fall of 6 & 7 day weeks where I got up at dawn and worked until the sun went down. A 12-14 hour day was not unusual for me and I honestly don't really notice unless the temperature spikes up or down. My body started to hurt when it finally got cold and the wind howled down the through the hills. I was ready for a bit of a break once November rolled in.

We said good-bye to our apprentices, Allie and Jonathan just after the first of November as they moved on to winter work. Allie worked in Boston for a conservation group for a few months before accepting a great Harvest Manager position on a farm out in Washington State. Jonathan went home to Florida after getting a great position as an Organic Certification Inspector. We will keep in touch and wish them all the very best.

Plowing in Middle field

Thank goodness the fall stretched long and warm and it felt like a blessing every day that I walked out the door and it wasn't frigid. No frozen water lines, plants or water buckets through most of December and into January. wow. But winter was most definitely going to come and I worked hard and fast to get the newly plowed fields (8 more acres!) tilled and seeded to cover crops (hoping that the seed will germinate and grow despite the lateness of the year). 

So what have I been doing this winter on the farm? I am planning for next season- we are growing folks! With an additional 200 shares to grow for, there is a lot of planning to be done and we are planning on getting  LAYING HENS too, so I need to make sure that I have everything ready for them before they arrive. Field planning and layouts have to happen now along with greenhouse seeding charts, all of which includes miles of calculations on spreadsheets galore on how many row feet of your favorite veggies we are going to grow for you starting in just another short week. I start the growing season in the greenhouse with onions, celeriac, herbs and some persnickety long season flowers. The indoor computer work can be tedious for someone who is used to moving constantly, but I am dreaming in technicolor seed catalogs. I delighted in ordering 1500 sweet potato slips and new varieties of strawberries and there is more of that to come. I've given a couple of presentations, ordered A LOT of potting soil, seeds and gear for next season. And helped with planning some of the awesome events and gatherings that will be happening here at the Farm this spring and summer.

I have also spent a little downtime hanging out with my family-  long mornings contemplating jellyfish at the Aquarium, studying Egyptian carvings and hieroglyphics at the MFA and helping my 13 year old homeschooler with his parabolic equations for a Pixar computer animation course he is wading through. I also have been able to finish some knitting projects, a couple of skeins of homespun yarn and do some Japanese Shibori cloth dying projects. Eventually we even had enough snow and less wind for me to get out on the fields with my skis. 

The goats are doing great- they are a month from kidding, so they are still jumping about and frisky in the cold weather. We treat them to cloves of garlic, frozen pumpkin popsicles, giant carrots, kelp meal and more to keep them happy and healthy through the winter. They are all VERY fuzzy with thick layers of cashmere under their shiny fur. They don't like the wind so we built them a nice winter paddock behind the barn where they can be outside in the sun, but the barn blocks the gusts and they come inside the barn at night to bed down on a warm mix of hay and shavings.

We have a Meet the Farmer Event happening on Saturday March 12th from 10a-12p! I will be having Story-time and Seed Starting in the Greenhouse. I will read some of my favorite garden stories and then we will start some flower seeds in pots for kids to take home. We will also hopefully visit the new week old baby chicks and talk a little about how we take care of them (they are supposed to arrive this week, but we are still waiting).

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