Where did we go?

We’re right here! But, if you kept up with news of the farm, you may have wondered.

For the busiest folks, I’ll sum it up with a single line: We had a good year at the farmer’s market, and a great year at… well, life.

If you have a little more time, here’s a recap of what we’ve been up to, and a farm update. But first, please allow me to explain my hiatus.

After keeping this journal for several years, I took a break from it this year. Although it’s been incredibly fun, regular posts require a lot of time, and I needed to use that time in a different way.

Some of you may know this, but to others it may be a bit of a surprise. I’ve been a screenwriter for about 15 years. I write “specs.” Sometimes solo, sometimes with a partner who lives in Maryland. Spec is an industry word for a screenplay that nobody asked you to write. It’s a script you’re trying to sell, or use to attract a manager or producer. After years of shoehorning screenwriting into the nooks and crannies of my life (nap time… at 5 in the morning… during PJ Masks), my schedule, headspace, and finances allowed me the incredible opportunity to write full time.

This past year, I wrote and rewrote, and cut my teeth pitching. I pitched projects to more than 50 managers and producers, and had a fun ride as a finalist in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards — a contest that draws about 9,000 entries. In the science fiction category, my script made the Top 10 out of 500 scripts.

It was a thrilling year, with one learning curve after the next. And 2024 is shaping up to be just as exciting.

So — yes! I’m still here. We’re still here. Life just continues to evolve.

Our biggest news this year isn’t farm related.

After nine wonderful years with our little guy at home, the time had come to send him to in-person school for the third grade. The decision was a combination of factors — a mix of what was best for him… and for me.

As summer clipped along, we all had big feelings about the change. It’s been the three of us at home together for the past few years, and, of course, Silas has been at my side for almost a decade. Letting him go, it hurt.

But first, let me back up a bit to May, when we returned to the farmer’s market at the lovely Meadville Market House.

This was our first season without the CSA. Since we no longer needed to provide produce for approximately 50 families a week, we scaled back the amounts we grew, especially when it came to greens. We still planted an abundance of kale, but only a limited amount of lettuce in the spring. With the sale of greens no longer financially necessary, we decided to ease up.

A more relaxed farm season helped us take two wonderful trips this summer. One was to visit with Jason’s family in Alexandria Bay, on the Saint Lawrence River in upstate New York. The other was hiking the mountains and waterfalls of Shenandoah National Park. This park has more than 100 drivable miles along the Blue Ridge Mountains. You can cruise through the park at 35 mph and pull up to incredible vistas along the entire way. The mountain experience left an impression on all of us, and we’re planning to explore another range next year.

Here are a few photos from our trip to Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. These were taken on Hawksbill Summit, Shenandoah’s highest peak.

The hikes were awe-inspiring to Silas. We want to see as many national parks with him as we can.

Hi! It’s me on a mountain.

We’ve never been so sad to see a summer end. I cried harder than I have in decades the first morning that school bus pulled away.

It wasn’t long after the tears dried up, that we were beset with constant school-borne viruses. It was so bad we had to end our farmer’s market season two weeks earlier than intended. (This first year of in-person school has been a doozy. Silas is recouping from his eleventh sickness since September.)

Apart from the parade of illnesses, Silas has successfully transitioned into school. Any chance he gets, he makes it known to us that he prefers school at home, but there are perks to regular school that even he can’t deny. It’s helped tremendously that he has a very kind teacher who has nearly 30 years of experience. Art and tech are his favorite classes, and he loves all the fun that happens around the holidays.

We sure do miss him, and we can’t wait for Christmas vacation to start. (Neither can he!)

Jason will take a few days off around Christmas, too, but he’ll have to hit the ground running in January, with grant deadlines looming. He stays busy in his “hobbit hole,” as we call it. His basement office is a cozy, windowless room with an ornate door that’s rounded on the top. It was built by my uncle, and looks exactly like something you’d expect Bilbo Baggins to pop out of.

Kidding aside, I’m so proud of him. His intelligence and conscientious manner have made him an asset to many worthwhile regional projects. (For those who don’t know: Jason is a grant writer and project manager. The company he created, Spark Community Capital, will have its third anniversary next year.)

But what about the farm? Ah, yes — the farm!

Here we are at the farmer’s market.

In the spring, we’ll reconfigure the layout of the gardens. There are sections we no longer need, and we’ll till those under. This will let us brush hog those areas. They’ll be more sightly and less of a haven for varmints.

We’re also redesigning the sections that we’ll continue to plant, and rethinking the 125-foot long beds. The extra long beds were necessary when we were growing CSA-sized quantities, but now truncated rows will be more manageable.

Kale and Swiss chard growing in the Big Tunnel this spring.

And we’re yet again rethinking how we approach the farm. The goal was to become self-employed. We achieved this, although ironically not through farming. While this has been wonderful for our family, it’s left us unsure of how to proceed with the farm.

And the question was raised this year: Do we proceed?

Do we want to?

Ultimately, we decided the answer was yes. We’re going forward with Season 10. But that brings me to how we’re rethinking the farm. Our mindset for this year will be that we’re growing again for us. We’re approaching this season less like a business, and more like, well, a garden. We’re trusting our instincts and listening to our hearts. Anything else has never really suited us.

Jason plants garlic for next year.

I’m not sure how much you’ll hear from me here. There are only so many hours in a day, in a year, in a lifetime. I don’t regret how I’ve spent mine in the past nine years, but I do have a strong sense of how I want to spend the next decade. Merry Christmas, friends. And may you make excellent use of your hours in the new year, too.

~ Stella

First market for us

We eased into the farm season this year. Our first market appearance was today. We love hanging out at the Meadville Market House on Saturdays, so we were happy to be back. See you next week!

Time for a new chapter

We have four lists hanging on our fridge. They’re lists of what we’re planning to put in the last CSA shares of the season. We’ve made these lists for eight years. In that time, we’ve packed weekly produce shares, June through October, for more than 300 households total. That’s close to 6,000 shares.

After eight years, we’re opening to a fresh page for the farm, and our family, and doing so means it’s time to end the CSA. We’re grateful for everything the CSA helped us do, and we’re also excited for the future.

We’ve found ourselves in the fortunate position of no longer requiring the CSA to financially sustain our family or farm. If you’ve followed our story, you know that Jason left his full-time job in December. He started his own business as a grant writer and project manager. To our complete and joyous surprise, this business was immediately able to support our family.

And while this was wonderful news for us, it did upend our year. This was supposed to be the season when we farmed full time, with Jason’s new business operating on the side for added financial security. To keep ourselves sane, we decreased our farm workload in the ways that we could. This meant focusing on the CSA, while drastically scaling back retail sales, and only attending the farmers market when it did not put too much strain on our week.

Next year, we’ll be doing the reverse. We’ll return to selling to local outlets, and we’ll be regulars again at the farmers market.

This farm reset will open up time and energy for long overdue personal and professional goals, and allow us much more time with family. It will also allow us to retool the farm. We’re drawing up plans for an entirely new farm layout (one of the benefits of a business built of soil!), and rethinking what we’ll plant and how much. There’s a new, exciting energy flowing into our lives.

We’re grateful for everything the CSA gave us. It’s because of the CSA that there’s even a farm. And it gave us the confidence to make the leap to self-employment, a decision that has changed our lives in the most fantastic way. Along the way, we’ve met people who will be special to us always. We’ve finished Part 1 of the farm’s story. Time for the sequel.

~ Stella

Best laid plans

If you know what they say about “best laid plans,” then you’re wiser than we were last year. We thought we had 2022 all figured out, and then it unfolded in a completely unexpected way from the start.

We’re happy to report that the unexpected turn of events this year has been a true gift to our family. Last year, Jason started his own grant writing and project management firm. Basically, he's continuing to use the skills he acquired during his decade in local government, but in the private sector on his own schedule.

This was supposed to be a side gig — just something for added financial security. As soon as he left his full-time county government job in December, his new business took flight — and it hasn’t touched down yet. We even recently completed the steps necessary to make me an employee of the business. We definitely did not see that coming.

To keep ourselves from going crazy with work this year, we’ve scaled back how much we harvest and sell. While the CSA remained unchanged from last year (about 50 families, 18 weeks of produce), we decided to step back from online sales and regular farmers market appearances. We LOVE setting up a stand at the Meadville Market House on Saturday mornings, but we could not maintain that level of time/physical labor every week this season. We skipped the past few Saturdays to catch up on the farm and enjoy family time — and just breathe! FYI: We do expect to be at the farmers market this Saturday (July 30).

We’re learning to set boundaries with the farm, and work in general. This season, our farm priority is the CSA. Beyond that, we’re not doing anything if it stretches us too thin.

We definitely didn’t see this plot twist coming, but we’re glad it did. We’ve been 100 percent self-employed for seven months now. Our new business has given us financial freedom and freedom when it comes to the farming choices we make. We’re still busy making plans for 2023, of course, because we’re planners. But we’re remembering to factor in enjoying life and our family and friends in those plans.

~ Stella

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Silas, me, Jason, and Luna on the ladder to Si’s tree fort, at his request.

It took plenty of wrangling to get a 7-year-old and a pup in this photo. But, alas, I dilly-dallied getting our Christmas cards made, and realized they’d be delivered to our doorstep by Dec. 22 at the earliest. I really didn’t want to spend that day feverishly filling out cards that weren’t even going to make it to their destinations by Christmas. That’s Silas’s last day of cyber school for the year (yay!) and Jason’s last day at his off-farm job (yayyayyay!). Please forgive the holiday card lapse. I have so enjoyed the cards we’ve received.

To close the blog for this season, I’d like to say thank you. Thanks for reading. And thanks for caring about the little farm way back in the woods, whether we’re friends, family, or acquainted only through these words. I hope you and yours have a lovely holiday and a peaceful, happy New Year.

Merry Christmas, friend!

~ Stella

The plan for Season 8 - continue to be frugal, start setting limits on work hours

We’re now eight work days out from Jason leaving his full-time job. It might seem like a time for radical rethinking of farm revenue, but for two reasons this December isn’t much different than past years.

For one, the farm’s functioned for seven years now, and Jason’s meticulously tracked our yearly progress. Because of this, the adjustments we need to make on paper to prepare for the season are predictable. We’ll fill in details over the next few weeks, then it’s time to order seeds and start indoor seeding by late January.

The second reason we aren’t in a frenzied restructuring mode is that the farm will not be our sole source of income. Initially, our plan was to ramp the CSA back up to 75 members, as it was in Season 5, and attend three farmers markets a week. We also laid the groundwork with another regional retailer and planned to stock our produce there.

Over the summer, our plans for Season 8 shifted significantly when Jason started his grant-writing/project managing business, Spark Community Capital. This venture uses his decade of knowledge in this field, and lets him control his own schedule. It also provides a new income stream for our family and shifts pressure off the farm.

With this change, we decided to continue with an approximately 50-member CSA (this will once again include several free shares in our Give & Grown program). We’ll also be applying to attend one farmers market this year - the Meadville Market House on Saturdays.

Prior to the pandemic, we attended three farmers markets a week with the help of a part-time employee. In those days, we set up two days a week at the Titusville Open Air Market, and one day at the Market House. The Titusville market is wonderful, and helped us tremendously in our earliest years. But for the time being, we’re cutting back to the one market for two reasons.

The first reason is time. The day before any farmers market is spent harvesting, washing, and packing everything we plan to sell. In order to harvest enough to make the market worth our while, this process takes a whole day. Our goal is a table with a minimum of $300 of produce. A table with $400 of produce that we sell in about four hours would be a good day. More than that would be a great day. Then, of course, we spend a good portion of the following day actually at the market, setting up, selling, and closing down.

So a trip to the farmers market is about a day and a half of labor. The more markets we attend, the less time we have in the field or doing something entirely different, which brings me to the second reason.

We’ve decided that we no longer want our family going in different directions on Saturdays. We want to enjoy Saturdays during the growing season together. To make this happen, we’ll make all CSA deliveries on Thursdays (in the late afternoon/early evening), and then we can all be at the farmers market together.

We’re excited about this because the farmers market is a lot of fun, and so is downtown Meadville on a Saturday morning. Visiting with people who value local, no-spray produce, and the rainbow of foods NW Pa. provides, is rewarding for a farmer. It’s also good for a gardener’s soul to chat with fellow farmers. When much of your weekly conversation is the overheard humming of bees, the social connection is much appreciated.

Jason’s looking forward to it because he hasn’t had the opportunity to work a market regularly in all his years farming. He and Silas used to pop in to visit me as they passed through on CSA deliveries, and I know neither one of them ever wanted to get back on the road again.

There’s something special in the air at a farmers market. The ones in this area are small, not the endless stretches that sprout in larger cities. While I’m sure big markets are wonders to behold, little markets are cozy. Everyone knows everyone, and they’re easy to navigate. You’re doing right by your health and your community when you visit a market, big or small.

In 2022, we plan to continue selling to Core Goods, in Oil City, and Edinboro Market. These unique shops fill their shelves with local products and are important to small farms like ours.

We also plan to continue selling online via our website.

While our circumstances will change dramatically in 2022, our goal is not to push ourselves to our limits. We’ve done that for seven years. We also spent the last few years paying off our debts and developing a frugal lifestyle anchored by minimalist tenets. We did all this to essentially gain our freedom from the traditional work model, which structures a life around working for someone else and often leaves only crumbs of time (if that, even) for your family, your life, and your community.*

While this year feels experimental, it does not feel scary. Like any experiment, it could fail. But we believe in our hypothesis and we’ll tinker with it as needed. Our method includes living debt free and on a budget; cherishing people and experiences over material things; and working hard, but smart, as needed. We hope the conclusion to this experiment is a life with our loved ones and our own well-being at its core.

~ Stella

* If you’re new to this idea and it intrigues you, may I suggest, “Your Money or Your Life,” by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, and “The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy,” by Cait Flanders. You may also be interested in the excellent blog, “Frugalwoods.com.”

The 1,000-pound day

Today was a 1,000-pound day. My harvest was around 320 pounds, and I hauled it from the gardens to the truck, from the truck to the washing station, from the washing station to the cooler, with plenty of lifting and shuffling in between.

Earlier in the week, Jason was recruited to help with the CSA harvest, but he had a long week of late meetings for his off-farm job, and not enough time in the gardens. My goal was to complete the harvest to free up his evening on the farm.

Today was one of the more tiring kinds of days, but … I took breaks when I needed. Came into the house to get a drink when I wanted. Took as much time for lunch as I felt like. No one told me what to do. I only took orders from myself. I was safe. If I felt like sitting down and feeding the bunny greens, I did. At some point in the afternoon, Grandma showed up on the golf cart and sped away with Silas, giving me an opportunity to work without a child in tow.

If you’ve ever read about conditions on many huge farms, and what the workers go through, than you know I should be grateful for just one long day with so much good fortune.

My original plan was to join Jason on the farm tonight, weed the kale and put down straw. But, I’m 5 feet tall, and half a ton is a lot. After taking off my wet farm clothes that stink like green onions, I remembered that I needed to pick spinach tonight. Dammit! was my first thought. Well, I can handle one more pound or two.

~ Stella

The first CSA harvest is in! How much did we pick?

We’re packing 55 CSA shares for Lucky Season No. 7. We have 20 half shares and 35 full shares, and the harvest is in for this week’s CSA. They’ll be packed tomorrow morning, and then distributed over three days.

Over the seasons, we’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) there are two keys to a smoother CSA week.

1.) Have a detailed, written plan for the week. When it’s written out, you might look at it and say, “Well, damn.” But you must have a plan in front of you. It’s better than looking around the farm and having that same thought. For the CSA, I make a list a week beforehand of the produce we think will be ready to harvest. Jason’s seeding and planting schedule aims to hit its mark every week, but of course the weather is always a big factor. I plan out what we’re going to harvest down to the exact number of kale leaves. Then, I map out when we’ll harvest. Having a clear plan makes any changes that crop up during the week less painful.

2.) Do. Not. Procrastinate. Never. Don’t do it. No. Do not. We mostly stick to the written plan, but if an opportunity presents itself, we take it. Like, say, the radish pulling went way faster than expected. Okay, then pick some spinach right now instead of tomorrow. We cut greens that store exceptionally well, such as kale and spinach, as early in the week as possible. When cut properly, in the cool of morning or evening, and immediately rinsed and stored in airtight containers in the cooler, they can keep for several weeks, so picking them a few days in advance is perfectly fine. Early on in my farm years, I had the ridiculous mindset that all CSA produce had to be harvested only one day before it’s packed. This is completely foolish. Fresh vegetables store well. Don’t make it harder on yourself than it needs to be.

This is our second season with about 55 members. For our biggest CSA season, we had 75 members. That was when we had a part-time helper. With Jason still working off-farm full time, we decided to keep the CSA around 55. The fact that we sell out every year is a positive indicator for future expansion.

But back to present day. Want to know how much we harvested for this week’s CSA? Here you go:

Kale: 20 pounds (This is 600 big leaves.)

Lettuce heads: About 100

Pea shoots: 7 pounds

Oregano: 4 pounds

Spinach: 6 pounds (This week, the spinach is only going in the full shares. Sometimes we alternate what the half shares and full shares receive. It all just depends on how much is ready to harvest.)

Parsley: 3 pounds

Green onions: Not sure how many. It felt like an eternity’s worth. Darned green onions. A tedious vegetable if there ever was one.

Radishes: About 3 bushels

Every season, as that first CSA week draws near, I get nervous. We still harvest for local shops and fill website orders every Monday, plus we’ve got to, you know, grow stuff. There are times when the weekly schedule looks totally bananas. There are times when I look around and think, this whole thing is nuts, isn’t it? Are we nuts? Well, maybe it is, and maybe we are, but, we’ve got a plan, and we just need to stick to it. And no procrastinating. No. Never. Huh-uh! Don’t even think about ! ;)

We’re loving the pick-up we bought last fall, even with all its quirks. It’s so easy to load bins in the bed. We’ve still got the Toyota RAV4 and its trailer, but the truck is much easier. That’s the whole lettuce harvest for the CSA this week. It’s about 100 heads. Time to take it home and let it soak before storing it in the cooler in bins.

~ Stella

The birds and the butterflies

The new deer fence, with its tall, wood posts and sturdy wire, is doing a right proper job of keeping deer out, but it’s welcomed a new creature in: birds.

Jason noticed their arrival first. Working in the gardens, he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. Birds used the fence posts as landing pads to dip down to the beds. And just as Jason was growing more accustomed to seeing them, they seemed to be getting more comfortable around him.

After hearing his observations, I noticed it, too. Closing up a Cat tunnel for the night, there were a half-dozen robins searching for worms in the freshly-buried potato patch behind me.

Birds aren’t the only creatures using farm airspace.

As I rolled up the sides of the Big Tunnel, this eastern tiger swallowtail fluttered in the corner. It must have mistaken my yellow glove for a flower because it wouldn’t give up trying to poke its black straw through the fabric. Safely set upon a dandelion, it got straight to work.

While the fence appears to be drawing birds in from the woodline, the farm shed has always been a prime spot for nesting. We have robins now. Mother and father robin both bring food to the babies. I watched the mother drop a worm in a baby’s beak, and as soon as that worm was down the hatch, the baby opened its mouth again. I, also having a child who is a bottomless pit, imagined that mama bird sighing as she alighted from the nest to fetch another snack.

~ Stella

First major planting! Almost 1,000 feet of deliciousness

It was a great couple of days on the farm.

On Saturday, Angelica and I redid Caterpillar 2 (the one dismantled by the wind last week), then Jason helped us fix Caterpillar 1’s wind damage.

After those issues were set right, Caterpillar 1 was filled with broccoli, Swiss chard, and kale transplants.

On Sunday morning, we planted in the Big Tunnel for the first time ever! We started with lettuce and pac choi transplants. Then, Angelica and I planted the first tomatoes of the season. (Returning CSA members will be happy to know that sungold cherry tomatoes went in the Big Tunnel! These bright, orange, cherry tomatoes are fantastic for snacking and cooking. They taste like sunshine.)

Doesn’t this Asian green look crunchy?!

Later in the day, Angelica practiced using the seeders. (We have a Jang and an Earthway.) Carrots, peas, beets, and French breakfast radishes were seeded in the Big Tunnel. Last spring, we spent hours weeding and trellising several hundred feet of peas, only to have the deer munch the vines down to stumps overnight. However, with the Big Tunnel, they should be safe. This was just our first major planting of the season. Many more to come! - Stella

Here’s the weekend rundown:

Carrots: 90 feet

Lettuce and pac choi: 95 feet total (Pac choi is an Asian green. Tasty in stir-frys and soups.)

Red Russian kale: 100 feet

Green curly kale: 100 feet

Swiss chard: 40 feet

Broccoli: 100 feet

Red cherry tomatoes: 80 feet

Sungold cherry tomatoes: 45 feet

Peas: 90 feet

Beets: 90 feet

French breakfast radishes: 90 feet

Baby broccoli under a Caterpillar tunnel.

Friends who would know - is this a silvery checkerspot?

UPDATE: CSA member Dianne checked with her husband, Rich, a zoologist. This butterfly is an Eastern Comma, one of the first butterflies to arrive for the season. Thanks, Rich! This particular Eastern Comma was rescued by Jason from under plastic.