Last week of the CSA

The calendar may say it is still fall but these cold nights are telling me it is winter.  Winter on the farm is a time of introspection, reflection and planning.  It is time to get our household in order, literally and figuratively.  The field is wet and will likely be so until spring, so it is time to winterize our equipment and perform annual maintenance.  I am looking forward to making drapes for the house and mending jeans, reorganizing our wash/pack setup and ordering seeds.  I am not looking forward to giving the house a thorough cleaning, worrying about the animals on cold nights, and scrimping and saving over the coming months without regular income, but it is a package deal.
 
We have had a full year.   In the spring we planted perennial crops like asparagus, peaches, muscadines, blackberries and blueberries.  The big payoff is years away, but we should get the first blackberries next summer, we may steal a few asparagus stalks in the spring and maybe even a few blueberries if Randy isn’t too religious about knocking off the blossoms.  In total, we planted nearly twice the area we grew on last year and somehow managed the double load of field work with the blood, sweat and tears to show for it.  Earthworms are slowly repopulating the field.  We (unfortunately) learned about black rot and pickleworms, and discovered that squash bugs eat more than just squash.  This summer, Randy got a new all-terrain wheelchair, giving him access to more of the farm and under a broader range of conditions.  We started going to the Oxford City Market and have made connections with lots more sustainable farmers in Mississippi.  More recently, we put up a high tunnel and we are already harvesting out of it!  We found a breed of broiler chickens that we enjoy raising after becoming completely and utterly fed up with meat birds and ready to give it up.  Yes, there were some minor disasters – we almost killed all the tomato plants this spring with an unexpected freeze, two thirds of our laying hens ran away, and the corn catastrophe tops the list of crop failures – but on the whole we proclaim the 2013 growing season a success.  Of course we haven’t looked at the books yet but we have kept the lights on and the mortgage paid, so we must be doing something right.
 
More importantly, we are starting to feel like farmers.  Last year had the feeling of playing house.  I wanted to be a farmer, but I felt a bit like an imposter, waiting to see if this farming thing would take.  Now, two years in I feel the satisfaction of living a purposeful life.  The nagging question of can we make this work? is transformed into how do we make this work? because I cannot possibly imagine what I would do if not farming.  It is largely because of you, our CSA members, that we are able to farm.  Thank you.