Cleaning Up For the Season
After a bit of a dry spell, the rains are back. In December this hauls any fieldwork and sends this farmer inside to stay dry. But there is plenty of farm work to do like organizing everything in the barn,…
Category Continuing Education
Farmers Love Books
As a farmer with winter coming and farm life slowing down, now is the perfect time to stay inside and get cozy with a good book. Books make great presents this holiday season either as a hostess gift or a…
Just Keep Weeding, Just Keep Weeding
I’m still weeding the field, I mean I’m not sure it will ever end. When you work for yourself, you make the work schedule, create the tasks, you are the enforcer, and you are the employee. Normally I’m a great…
Organic Policy Work
Last week I was in Washington DC for the Organic Trade Association‘s jam-packed policy week. It started with a great summit, on organic agricultural research at universities and sustainability incentives from different government agencies. The following day Clif Bar hosted a fun…
Working Out
I feel no need to go to the gym. I walk my daily 10,000 steps by moving full trays of seedlings around, I perform plenty of bicep reps from packing and unpacking goods for the farmers market, and this week…
There is Always Paperwork
With moving land this season the workload is more than just hauling my supplies to a new location and setting up a new field. There is the ever important paperwork. There is the lease agreement of course, the contract between…
Field Work
This past week I spent some time out in my new field. Even though I’ve been working on farms for about 15 years there is always a learning curve when it comes to working a new piece of land. You…
Tax Season
With the weather forecast calling for an atmospheric river event over the next couple of days. I decide it was as good, of a time as any to work on my taxes. I do my best throughout the year to…
Family Help
Recently I have had a lot of family visiting. When these visits were planned way back when, I figured we would spend our days sightseeing and occasionally visiting the farm to do some weeding or greenhouse work. But with the farm…
Changing Land
Things have been busy at the farm but not in the normal way of seed starting and greenhouse work that typically dominates February. I have been spending my days looking for land and packing up the farm. Like many first…