Those of you who have been reading these newsletters for awhile will have followed our contemplations over the past year or two regarding whether to retire the seasonal vegetable CSA. Having considered doing so last year, we instead instituted a significant make-over for 2021, basically halving the yearly share by making it every-other-week and letting farm members pack their own bags. This reduced the amount of work on our end, and seemed a workable template for a more sustainable way to manage the CSA, much as we’d intended.
But it also provided scintillating glimpses, during the off-weeks, of what life on the farm might be like once the CSA was retired altogether.

These inadvertent tastes of opium have had their effect. I wish I could say I was not susceptible to the temptations of sloth, as I might have contended in my 30s or 40s, but the wages of age are hard to deny. For now, the possibility of laying in the hammock under the plum tree and falling asleep (first: to want to lay in the hammock), or to go on a summer vacation, or actually experience a summer weekend in Madison – these are enticements that have now got my work-ethic by the neck. And while I still find it difficult to sit still for more than ten minutes, part of what motivates me to drop CSA now is precisely that I want to leave some working capacity in my joints and tendons for what I’m hoping might be an active old-age (unless it already is).
The vegetable patch at the farm is likely to shrink only modestly next year, in any case. We will still be feeding ourselves and producing enough for our regular canning-runs so we can keep our value-added sales going. We may do Fall storage shares. The orchard may also increase its production if we are able to provide it more assiduous attention than we’ve been able to in recent seasons.

We have made the tough decision to sunset our CSA program. I have made an equally tough decision to take a hiatus from wedding flower work (o.k. so I might still do June weddings where peonies and perennials are at their prime). Wow! This is a big shift as many of you have been with us for decade(s).

I could say that it’s the woodchucks that are making me do this. When I started farming with Rob in 2008-2009 season, our vegetable beds were overrun with woodchucks. Since then we seemed to have had a truce, wherein they left the broccoli and fruit alone in exchange for all the clover and forage in our sprawling field borders. That is up until this season, wherein the next generation of ‘chuckers’ managed to tunnel from the old barn foundation, burrow under our fence and re-surface right next to our beans. I had to admire their engineering and spatial sensibilities, even as they leveled the blossoms and went onto the carrot tops.

Woodchucks aside, my goal of slowing down, taking a sabbatical from production farming this season didn’t really happen, as a few wildcards and labor needs needed to be a priority. It's all good, though it’s also really hard as the farm is home. I love growing food and beauty and sharing this with you. I love plants though need to shift and restore balance. While I am grateful for the humane growing season, wedding flower re-books from last year, a few writing projects that brought joy, and just in time support when the harvests seemed endless, my body is telling me I can’t do it all anymore and I need to pause and listen to it.

I have decided to step back from the business of farming, focus on orchard care and