May Newsletter
I can liken this growing season to the 100-meter dash. The runner spends time to warm up, get into position and then wait for the shot to go off. Once the gun has gone off every muscle in your body is performing at its max, exerting all its energy to the 10-15 second race. This spring feels a bit like the starting line gun shot, April was too cold and wet to even think about working the ground. Now it’s sunny, somewhat dry and farmers are 2-3 weeks later in their planting than in typical years, so it’s an all-out sprint to get plants into the ground…
April Newsletter
Good one Mother Nature! You got me. Honestly this last snowstorm was really my fault for I tempted Her. I washed all the winter gear, planted 50 cold hardy seedlings, wore shorts around the house, and my worst offense, daydreamed that in one weeks’ time there would be no snow and maybe I could start putting potatoes in the ground by Easter. So, to all of you who woke up to a day of shoveling, I apologize, for I knew better than to taunt…
March Newsletter
My phone sent me a photo of a year ago today with the birth of our loving cow Butterscotch McFartface. Today Butterscotch is not so loving. She is shy and recently escaped from the…
May Newsletter
I start every newsletter with the goal of not writing about 3 topics. The first being…
April Newsletter
As most of you know, I was tricked into marrying a man that I thought was going to be a dairy farmer and instead turned corporate. My 20-year-old-something-wanna-be-farmer-self thought I would be collecting milk every day and making cheeses, yogurts, and ice creams all from our own cows. Well, 20 some years and 3 small humans later, I had yet to…
March Newsletter
A few weeks ago, we had what you could call a special delivery and about 3000lbs of it. All the way from our family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin, came…
February Newsletter
If I were not embarrassed of my office, I would send you a picture of the craziness that is farming for me at this moment. I have piles of seed bags all over the floor and my desk, competing for space with my piles of papers that are also all over my floor and …
January Newsletter
January Newsletter
I’m ready for another go in 2022! I skip saying goodbye to 2021, because while I wouldn’t exactly call 2021 my favorite year it was 365 days of some really great things. To dismiss 2021 and “start fresh” in 2022, would discredit all the things I have learned over the past year and trust me there was a lot to take in. So, I’m ready to go in 2022… with some adjustments.
My biggest adjustment this year will be my use of time. I have often said over the past year, and I do not think that I am alone when I say, “my time was not my own.” In June, when Bambi and his group of deer friends decided to…
December Newsletter
I say this jokingly of course, because Lord knows I have never really left the farm since April. But now here I am, enjoying the start of the “office” season planning and scheming for next year’s crop. It is at this point where I completely disregard any mental notes I made to myself during the summer. Like…
July Newsletter
Let me start by saying sorry for having my July Newsletter come out 19 days after the month of July started. Really, I am just punishing myself here, because August’s Newsletter needs to come out in about 11 days from now. I can not imagine what new events will happen during those 11 days, but it’s the farm, everyday…
June Newsletter
Want to make Mother Nature laugh? Just tell her your planting plans. Carefully map out a planting schedule, a weeding timeline, and a bug management program, and you will her laugh so loud it will sound like…
May Newsletter
All it takes is one 80-degree day in April to make growers officially end their “office season” and head outdoors to be begin a race against the weather and time. When we go from calm to grow, grow, grow, that’s when things start to heat up. Pretty soon not only will you be cooking with gas, but with…
April Newsletter
Driving by the farm at night these days, may make the passer byer wonder what the heck is going on in the red barn. The cows are mooing at odd hours, chickens are running amuck and there are red lights shining out of its windows. This time of the year is…..
March Newsletter
Its March and we can all feel it. The weather. Its turning. Today I looked at my weather app and the 10-day forecast displays nothing but mid-forties with possible fifties. I suddenly have this strong desire to pack up my winter coats and snow pants, but I have been in Minnesota long enough to know you just don’t do that. In 2013, I washed, folded, and stored all winter gear, only to have…
February Newsletter
Like any good Minnesotan, I have a strong desire to spend this entire newsletter complaining about the weather, “I mean, can you believe this cold snap we have this week.” Please imagine that being said in a thick Minnesota accent. But instead of ranting about the weather, it might be productive to….
January Newsletter
December is such a wash of a month. With all the spending, eating, vacations, cookies, late night TV watching, every good habit that you had developed over the course of the year has been blown in the last 31 days of a 365-day year. No wonder when January 1st hits, we make all these self-promises that in 2021 we’ll do it right when really it was just the month of December that was the real gong show. January brings us back reality and quite literally, the party is over…
December Newsletter
Oh crap (I say with a heavy Minnesota accent)! December is here and like every year before it I am not prepared. Not only have the presents not been wrapped, they have not even been bought. The fog has just cleared from Thanksgiving and its 11 almost finished pies are finally thrown away. Another Holiday month is ready for Christmas cookies, roasts and yes, more pies. The outside garden work is frozen, literally. I went to dig up my final carrots from the garden only to find…
November Newsletter
Thanks for nothing October. I know you are considered the month of beautiful leaves and cozy fall weather, but you got a little too “wintery” for me. Normally I’m all about you and the pumpkin picking and your last treats from the garden, but you dumped 8 inches of snow when…