What a crazy crazy year we are having. It was the winter that would never end, hello snow on May 2nd! then more cold until beginning of June then sort of a summer for a bit, then the end of July feels like fall has arrived, now we are finally starting to warm up again. But I have been hearing rumors. Rumors I don’t like of frost in August. Ugh, say it ain’t so. Years like this remind me that whether you have been farming for 5 years or 50 you are not likely to catch a break from mother nature and the only thing for certain is change.

 

Years like this make me so thankful for the CSA model, especially members that understand that this is about great food, but also a bit about learning to adjust, live closer to nature for everyone and support of a way of life and hence a community and hence a state, country, world, you name it. It is also about working with the environment and what it throws at us versus against it and learning to love it all.

 

While we certainly set goals in what we grow it is not about giving mother nature a shopping list (as if that would work anyway). It is not about saying “OK I planted this on such and such a date, the seed package says it will reach maturity on this date so I want it ready to eat here.” Point at the calendar, smile and nod and convince yourself that just might happen. My experience is that it won’t but that is OK. Maybe you’ll be surprised by something even better maybe you won’t but you know that the unpredictability is really what makes life worth living and tasting.

I am constantly surprised by the goods and bads of farm life. The amazing taste of a cucumber that has my father-in-law reminiscing about picking wild cucumbers with his parents near a creek on a mountain in Cambodia. Or the sudden sadness of coming across your favorite barn cat dead for no apparent reason. Yes farm life is about growing, not only food but our experience of the world. It isn’t always comfortable. It means so so much to be able to share this journey with you and to gain your support over the years maybe not only for us but for another farm family that doesn’t want this way of life to die.

Signed, L-R Proeun, Avril, Proeun II, Mavis, Effie, Amy and Pray Doeun