Bad Friend Summer

It's that time of our year when I find bits of carrot tops adorning the barrel of our washing machine after running a load of laundry. Whether they snuck into our pockets during harvest, or while slinging carrots at the farmers market, they come out in the wash.

We're Much (contractually) Obliged

Well, I signed my name on enough dotted lines to make it official last week. We are in cahoots with the Natural Resources Conservation Service again and we couldn't be more thrilled! Every year we throw our names in the ring for the High Tunnel Initiative which offers

July-Sun Chasers

June, which was defined by a week-long heat wave, came to a close and the kids and I ran away to Lake Huron. As the rule-following farmers would have you believe, we are meant to make hay while the sun shines and to leave summer vacationing to the laymen. Whether

I'm Sleeping In the Field Tonight

It turns out there are such things as ghosts. The ghost of my twenty-year-old self for one, haunts me whenever Rich and I allow a difference between us to fester like an untreated wound. The apparition of young, autonomous (to a fault) Sam calls to mind my life before Rich

Don't Care How

"I want it now!"... Veruca Salt wanted more and more of Wonka's sweet delicacies, and who could blame the gal? I think we all have a bit of Veruca in us. If you get a taste of something you like, the last thing you want is

June-Shedding Our Skin

We will unlock the longest day of the year this month as we kick off our wild and free season of productivity. All at once, the kids came barrelling through the tail end of their school year, and out the other side to summer on the farm, while the farm

May-Act II For Foxhole Farm

A shift is happening here. It's a conscious shift and one which we have been anticipating since starting our farm. Having gotten another farm business off of the ground up in Michigan, we had enough experience to forecast a 'feel-it-out' phase at the outset of Foxhole.

Come Pick Flowers With Me

Every April I commit to wildflower surveillance. It started the year we moved to the farm and a sea of wild violets enveloped the farmhouse. In my nervous anticipation of our tractor delivery, chomping at the bit to break ground before the season would get on its merry way with

A Week Without My Other 3/4

Everything 'they' tell us is true. And we should not take cliches lightly, especially 'you don't know what you have until it's gone'. Fortunately for me, we were only apart for a week. After seven years of no more than two nights

April-Deeply Watered

Since embarking on this pastoral journey we've learned time and again that in order to have the best chance of achieving fruition you must begin with a deep watering. I can hear the voices of those who taught us how to grow plants, "just really take your

Solid Ground

I visited our friend this week with a trunk full of food. I felt that this was one of the best gestures of my love, as homecooked meals have the dual-action power to soothe a soul while satiating the body. Our friend's farm, forty minutes down the road

Reading the Room Now

The perennial chives that grow in our home garden, just for us and for the lady bugs who crawl at their feet, they are ten inches tall already. It's St.Pats...not Mother's Day! But I'm reading the room and our sentries of spring

I wish you love

Rich and I did what we should do more often and stepped out of our well-worn routine to experience live music, one of life's greatest pleasures. A few good friends and people who remind us to look up, gifted us tickets to see the exceptional Jon Batiste. Those

March- Coexistence

In the middle of February I planted the first seeds on my list for the year. It always starts with chives. My quiet work was accompanied by the beeps and booms from a few properties over where General Motors is building their second facility. This time last year, Rich and

Setting the Field on Fire and Other Adventures

Today on a still and sunny afternoon, we set our western field on fire. Spring showed her face mid-February and we answered her call with a much-welcome sunkissed, spring cleaning day. Rich lit our old christmas tree ablaze in the designated bonfire zone and we tag-teamed reloading the fire with

February-We Never Said We Were Good Farmers

Rich and I never said we were good farmers. We'd be daft to say we were, being first generation agricultural pioneers. Maybe, just maybe there's inherent generational instinct embedded in our beings from great-great grandparents past who worked the land. Maybe that's why we

Choose Your Own Adventure

Answers to life's challenges seem to lay themselves out in front of you. So often blinded by tunnel vision, they are missed as we go-go-go through the motions. The universe offered a hand recently when a recurring idea presented itself in conversation with three random people in my

January- Like a Thief in the Night

A week into January and we have chicks promised for February, a season's worth of seeds in transit, and a clock reset and already ticking down the minutes of another year here on the farm, tocking away the hours slipping into the past. There's much promise

How About it, 2024?

Every 365 days, those of us who observe the Gregorian calendar celebrate the chance to renew ourselves. Despite anyone's belief in the tradition, we'll step into a new paradigm together as 2024 is born. Our life revolves around this calendar year...new trends announced by the

Wishing you Love

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays from the four of us. Grandma sent an email out to all of her family and concluded it by encouraging us to 'keep loving one another'. In my life's book she is one of the sages, an ethereal sort of character who

The Wild World Will Find You

A not so gentle reminder to unplug shot across the sky outside of our picture window the other night. Unbeknownst to me, caught up in the current of our December hustle, the Geminid meteor shower was on night two of its epic show. Immersed in a movie with Rich after

Time to Pay our Dues

Under the guise of deja vú, our bodies have come seeking what they're due. This is NOT new; it is not a familiar feeling from a past life...it happens every year. And I'm so glad we have recognized it. You see, our lives since starting

December-Take Your Time

Last week Rich, May, Jack and I rose under a fantastically full moon. The beaut lit our way across the George Washington Bridge on our road to home. May called our attention to the moonshine glittering on the Hudson River, which flowed beneath us and into the city that never

Dear ____,Thank You

I didn't know it was Thanksgiving time because we haven't entered dormancy yet. In fact, we have had more engagement than ever this November in large part due to mild weather conditions, but also thanks to increasing interest in what we do. Each week, I'

Seeking Closure

Sometimes you don't get to tie up all your loose ends. It seems that the child in me comes out when one of those loose ends is a character in my story. And I find myself having lots of childish thoughts...namely, 'it's not fair&