Forward Looking

Close-up of the garlic field

Happy New Year! First an announcement or two or three then on to some farm news.

We are still taking orders for the 2025 season! Sign-up today to reserve your spot. Existing members can simply send in payment (either $100 to hold your spot or full payment if you prefer). New members should purchase your shares through our online farmstand. Money can be sent via Zelle, PayPal or the good ol’ US Postal Service. Use my email address for Zelle or PayPal. Use my mailing address for the USPS. If you want to pay with cash, contact me and we can schedule a time to meet. For credit cards you can order through our store but then you’ll have to pay the full amount.

We also have all of our other shares available like coffee, shrooms, fruit, winter and flowers. And for those who like to garden a little, we sell customized six packs of plants. Feel free to add these to your account as well!

We will be ordering seeds this month. If there is anything you’d like us to grow, please let me know ASAP. If I don’t get any suggestions we’ll go back to the all kale all the time model. Seemed to be well received in the past.

Farm News

I don’t know about all of you but I am looking forward to a new year. This past year was perhaps our most frustrating in the 22+ years of farming. I’m typically not the type of person who dwells in the past — mostly because I tend to forget stuff — so I’m not going to rehash the many difficulties we encountered last season. Instead I am a more forward looking person — mainly because you don’t have to remember anything — and think about what we should do this season to improve on last season (hey, Farmer Chris. Seems like that is a bit of convoluted logic there. How can you improve on last season if you don’t recall anything about last season?)

Wide-angle-view of the garlic field

As a quick aside, I think being forgetful is a good attribute for a farmer. If we recalled all the problems we have year after year I don’t think we would do this more than one season — two at tops! (As a further aside, it’s kind of like having children or I suppose giving birth. Why would we ever put ourselves through that trauma again? Forgetting the bad allows us as a species to continue to propagate.) But not recalling these frustrations allows us to move forward like nothing happened at all last season. And if I recall correctly (and I am not prone to do so) most of the time farmers get together they complain about the past season even if the season was fine. So there is no need to remember the past since we just bitch about it anyway.

Now back to the purpose of this newsletter — this season’s improvements. First and foremost and probably most expensive is the installation of a deer fence. I don’t recall why we need this but something tells me that we’ve had problems with deer in the past. It will cost about $5,000 for fencing materials for about half of our fields — not cheap. But hopefully it will reduce the amount of deer feeding to allow us to plant fewer crops and still grow enough for our customer base. Of course with anything new we don’t know how well it will work out.

Another improvement is new plastic on our hoop house. Why do we need new plastic? Well, I don’t exactly recall but when I look at it there isn’t any plastic on it. So I determined putting new plastic on will be beneficial to its function. It also appears to need a few boards and fasteners replaced. We must have done this a few times in the past without losing anybody but with the size plastic needed for the house any slight puff of wind can make for an interesting adventure.

Stripped kale trees (with a bit of left thumb)

A third planned improvement is the purchase of moisture sensor. What is a moisture sensor you ask? And why would we need one? I think the answer to the first question is obvious — it is a sensor that senses moisture. I suppose the answer to the second question is equally obvious — our moisture needs sensing. Now maybe it would have been clearer if I said “soil moisture sensor”. What we are looking to purchase is a sensor to sense how much moisture is in the soil so we don’t over or under water the crops. I don’t recall why we would do either of these things but I suspect it has to do with having way too much rain or way too little rain these last 20 years. Once we have the soil moisture sensor we’ll need to find a way to add moisture when we need more (I think we had a solution in the past) and a way to remove moisture when there is too much (I don’t think there is a solution for this problem on this planet).

Anyway, those are the few big improvements that come to mind. I’m sure there are plenty of others that I just don’t recall.

As always, feel free to send in questions, comments, suggestions, and any veggies you’d like us to grow this season.

Joke of the Week

Here is the type of joke you get when you type “forgetful farmer joke” into Google.

An old geezer, who had been a retired farmer for a long time became very bored and decided to open a medical clinic. He put a sign up outside that said: “Get your treatment for $500 – if not cured get back $1,000.” Doctor “Young,” who was positive that this old geezer didn’t know beans about medicine, thought this would be a great opportunity to get $1,000.

He went to Dr. Geezer’s clinic and this is what happened. Dr. Young: “Dr. Geezer, I have lost all taste in my mouth. Can you please help me? Dr. Geezer: “Nurse, please bring medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in Dr. Young’s mouth.” Dr. Young: “Aaagh! This is Gasoline!” Dr. Geezer: “Congratulations! You’ve got your taste back. That will be $500.”

Dr. Young gets annoyed and goes back after a couple of days figuring to recover his money. Dr Young: “I have lost my memory, I cannot remember anything.” Dr. Geezer: “Nurse, please bring medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in the patient’s mouth.” Doctor Young: “Oh no you don’t, that’s Gasoline!” Dr. Geezer: “Congratulations! You’ve got your memory back. That will be $500.”

Dr. Young (after having lost $1000) leaves angrily and comes back after several more days. Dr. Young: “My eyesight has become weak I can hardly see!” Dr. Geezer: “Well, I don’t have any medicine for that so. Here’s your $1000 back.” Dr. Young: “But this is only $500…” Dr. Geezer: “Congratulations! You got your vision back! That will be $500.”

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