A lot has happened in a month!  We have just about met our CSA membership goals.  We have a handful of openings left and if you are considering joining, we invite you to do so.  We will be sending out emails with specifics about your dropsite and pick-up directions closer to the first delivery and when we have everyone signed up.   Our planting timeline for this Spring is pretty similar to where we were last season.  Another late late wet Spring....  But the good news is that we are WAY ahead of where we were last season since field prep was done ahead of time this year.  The first round of plants are all in the ground (about a month later than most other seasons) and we will be putting tomatoes, peppers, and other summer crops out as soon as the ground is dry enough again.  Hoping that the cold temps are over with!  The trees are just starting to leaf out around here!  The plants that are out in the fields will be off to the races with the warmer weather, but we will still have to push our first delivery a couple of weeks later.  We are hoping for June 26th, but if cool temps stick around, it may be the first week of July!  Eesh.  So much later than we like to go, but we will handle it the same way we did last season and just deliver boxes later into the fall.  Hopefully we will still get an extended season share out to those who want it, though.  It will just depend on the weather this fall.  But that's still lettuce and carrots and green beans and sweet corn and tomatoes away!  

Here's a little of what's been going on around the farm.  

the garlic is growing!

the greenhouse is the greenest!

look at lovely lettuces

more!

when it was too wet to plant, we helped our friends at Blackbrook Farm move a building by lifting it

and we made it to the May Day Parade

and we did some bird watching

and we watched some birds watch us

the plants were perfect and ready to get into the ground

so we got to work spreading soil amendments

planting onions

planting onions

planting onions!

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Sadie and Rama doing some direct seeding

loading up the transplanter

with all the beautiful plants

freshly planted fields! grow plants, grow!

there are plenty of worms out in the fields!

and we are feasting on yummy cheese from our farm while we wait for the veggies to grow!

We are excited to share some dates for classes put on by our friends and neighbors at The Hungry Turtle Farm and Learning Center.  There are lots of classes during the season.  Classes range from brewing coffee, cooking seasonally, home french cuisine, to gardening.  

We are also very happy about the start of the Turtle Scouts!   Turtle scouts are open to all ages.  The next event is on May 31 and it's the digestion workshop.  In this class Scouts will walk the Hungry Turtle property with herbalist Nancy Graden and learn about identifying wild edibles, how to harvest them ethically, tasty ways to eat them and what these plants can do for our health.  See the link for more about the Turtle Scouts and to sign up.  

If anyone attends any classes or Turtle Scout meetings at the Hungry Turtle, let us know!  We aren't far from there and would love to have you out for a visit to Turnip Rock!  We are finalizing dates and times for some events at Turnip Rock this season as well.  We will have a cooking class on the farm, a kids day, a couple of work days, as well as the harvest party.  We really want to give you a chance to make it out to the farm to see where your food comes from!  If you can't make it to any of the events but want to come out, just send us an email and let us know when you'd like to visit.  We would love to show you around!  It's an open invitation!  

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.  We are looking forward to the first delivery and will keep you up to date about when it will be.  

Sadie wants to know "Are you thinking about signing up?" Please do!

Hey there!  We are slowly thawing and we have been getting some things done around here!  The melting snow reveals lots of mud and a few things we may have forgotten to put away or finish up at the end of last season...  So we've been taking care of that.  Also seeding A LOT of plants, cleaning things out for animals, moving them around, receiving lots of shipments of soil amendments and Organic fertilizer and compost,  fixing things, and since we've decided to become bona-fide Certified Organic  we are up to our eyeballs in paperwork!  Our communication has been a bit slower since there's a little less time to sit down with Otto and our new addition, Sadie.  Sorry if you've been waiting for an update and hadn't seen one in a while...  It's really hard to sit at the computer when we all need some Vitamin D!  We have welcomed three of this seasons workers - Miranda, Betty, and Haley - and we are loving having them here.  They are really getting an impressive amount of work (and cookie baking) done!

We are still accepting members and have quite a few spaces left, so please sign up if you were planning on it!  Thanks to those that have signed up already!  We've added a new dropsite in Maplewood, so check it out on the map.  We are already way ahead of where we were last season in terms of preparation and weather, so we are feeling really optimistic about the season ahead.  In fact, the garlic is already starting to poke up through the mulch!  I know that we all can't wait for fresh local food!!!  The first delivery will be here before you know it!  We are all thinking warm thoughts and watching in anticipation as things slowly begin to green up. Now for the pictures...

mud season in full effect

the calves were anxious to get outside

some old friends came by to help get the greenhouse prepped

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the new greenhouse manager, Otto, on casual Friday

the first sprouts of the season - Onions!

the greenhouse greening up

bringing in the supervisor

the supervisor decided we needed more space so we built a cold frame.

Farmer Josh making it happen

onions a month later

Betty watering the cold frame

Miranda watering the greenhouse

Otto tasting the basil

lovely tomato plants

the garlic pushing through

 So, if you haven't joined or returned yet, we invite you to do so now.  Let us know if you have any questions or concerns.  We are excited about the coming season and hope that you are, too!

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This winter, however miserable it has been, seemed short for us. But in so many ways we are glad for it to be closer to over, to start new, to begin again. So much of fall and winter is about the impermanence of life, the immediacy of death, hibernation. More so this winter than others; the death of one of our twins, the failure of a small dairy herd, the strain of up rooting and moving the farm, a greenhouse collapse on christmas day...  The burdens have been heavy, but our resolve has been forged in a unbreakable cast.  The pain and struggle have been bound up with joy, quiet, and compassion from our community.  We have felt every kind of emotion imaginable all at once.  We've been joking that we have earned a PhD in feelings this past year.  We know the future holds great things, but 2013 has been the hardest year to date for us, and we truly hope to see none harder.  

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  This Winter we've been doing a lot of planning and learning.  We've been talking a lot to the other farmers in our community about the various ways that we can cooperate and make each others lives easier and  we have helped form the Hungry Turtle Farmers Cooperative dedicated to multiplying the impact of local food !  Rama went to a cheesemaking conference and we continue to work towards being able to provide you with delicious farmstead cheese (this is QUITE the undertaking, folks.)  Our little community is growing with farmers and food lovers and we are so excited to be involved in it. Amery will see a local foods restaurant, a learning center, a value added kitchen,  a full-fledged 'food hub'!  Our old location in New Auburn WI was more isolated than we had realized.  Visiting with people and sharing in their joys (weddings and babies and weddings and babies!) has made us feel bonded.  As much as we believe farmers are independent, we have come to learn that we are interdependent.  We need one another!  When we work together we all do better.  

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We have been excited by a recent trip to the MOSES (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services) Conference.  We got to hang out with about 3,400 other farm managers, food system thinkers, dreamers, and farm workers...  We reconnected with some co-workers from seasons past, worked on mentoring other beginning farmers, we ate really great food, drank a ton of coffee, and learned some things we are excited to implement in the coming seasons.   It's inspiring to be around other passionate growers, and humbling to be a part of something so powerful.  From the keynote speaker, Anne Lappe "Be a possibilist, not a pessimist or optimist. Hold yourself open to possibilities you can never imagine."

We are always trying to learn more about our profession and get better at what we do. 

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We've been welcoming little hints of Spring...  Days lengthening, watching birds return to the bird feeder (we are waiting for our first spotting of red-winged blackbirds), seed packets arriving in the mail, the woodpile dwindling, and the delivery of our potting soil.... But the best of all is that the forecast looks promising.   Temps up into the 40s!  The maple sap will be flowing any day now!  

We still have CSA shares available and we welcome you to sign up for the 2014 season.  We may have a late Spring again this year, but we are already in a better starting point than we were last season.  We are eternal optimists (and possibilists) and we feel our job of sustainably growing healthy, delicious, and beautiful food to be more important and necessary than ever (drought in CA?)  And somebody needs to eat it!...  So sign up today!  

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