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May 27, 2005
Surrender
Staying positive, focused, on one's goals and objectives during a tragedy is the lesson for us this week. Trying to find the opportunities that present themselves, or perhaps just surrendering and letting those opportunities find you in the face of dispair.
All of us experience loss, it's what we do with that makes the difference.
We are holding our heads high during this difficult time and moving forward, realizing now it could have been alot worse. The beauty in nature is it's ability to bounce back quickly, lettuce and greens are growing again and the farm is once again full of life.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our market customers who have been so gracious in their support and their friendly words of encouragement.
Posted by Jeff at 08:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Recovering
Sometimes even us farmers need to be reminded that plants grow back. And after the weeks of hard rain, these sunny days are creating the perfect condition for just that. Cutting our first small harvest of salad greens for the markets this weekend. Its scarce, but its a start to what is to come. Our first harvest of sugar snaps, also a small amount, look top notch. The damage is still substantial all aound the farm, but life is sprouting up out of the destruction at a rapid rate. It was a humbling experience for us, though Jeff and myself took it in stride, as we know its all you can do, finding the positive aspects was all we have set out to do these past weeks. Looking only ahead now we still see a positive year and plenty of produce to come. We are grateful for all that we do have and hope our loyal customers are as well. Thanks for listening.
Posted by Brett at 02:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 24, 2005
Monroe Market Opening Postponed
To ensure that we can provide the best produce to our CSA customers and our market customers, we have decided to postpone opening our Monroe Farm stand until June 26th. This will guarantee a great bounty of beautiful produce at the market for our opening day. We are planning for some great demos and samples for the opening day as well as face painting and activities for the kids. We will keep you posted.
Posted by Christine at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 21, 2005
Just another day??????????????
Sugar snap peas grounded
Well, Brett pretty much said all there is to be said. This IS farming... although I can't think of a time when it hurt so bad, both financially and the incredible emotional toll it seems to be having. I must say though, we are holding our heads up and searching for the positive in all this. This is certainaly no time to get depressed, it's a long season and we have plenty of time to recover. Some crops will be 75%-80% lost (sugar snap peas) for the season and others, lettuce and greens will be up and running in 2-3 weeks.
You just never know what opportunites lay ahead following a disaster, I like to think there is a higher power out there watching over us, ready to bring us something great when we least expect it. So for now please be patient with us and we will bring you all that wonderful Willie Greens produce as soon as we can.
Posted by Jeff at 04:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lights, camera, action!
Yesterday, KIRO-TV filmed as we cut and composted ruined crops. The film crew spent the entire afternoon at the farm, documenting both the destruction and the promise of our undercover crops. They filmed us live on the 5pm & 6pm broadcasts and our friends tell us that they re-ran the story this morning. We haven't seen the broadcasts ourselves, we have been working or just to disheartened to see the damage again. We are very appreciative of KIRO-TV's attention to our plight and the opportunity to educate the public about the frailty of small family farming.
Skeletal remains of Red bib lettuceThe Everett Herald did a wonderful article on us as well. The picture of Brett in the fields is particularly poignant. You can read Yoshiaki Nohara’s article here. The Monroe Monitor has also been out to the farm and we anticipate that they will cover us in their next edition.
Our thanks to the media for their compassionate coverage of local farming.
Posted by Christine at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2005
Beaten and bruised
The sky darkened once again and the sky opened up. Although there was only a minute of small hailstones, heavy winds whipped the trees. The downpour of heavy rain lasted about 15 minutes, beating down on our already bruised and tattered crops. Farming is often a lesson in humility and learning how to be small in a very big world. Hmm there was a HUGE clap of thunder when I typed the above line, how apropo.
Posted by Christine at 03:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Massacre at 19501 Tualco Rd
At about 12:30 pm yesterday, me and my crew were rushing to harvest the last of the produce for our two farmers' markets. We were also finishing packing the boxes of a large wholesale order for Charlie's Produce. All the sudden these black clouds seemed to roll in out of nowhere. Our sunny afternoon turned to dusk and within 5 minutes the clouds were on us. There was no time to cover our crops. The clouds brought the most intense hail I've ever seen, along with ferocious winds and rain. The wind was so strong that it pushed the rain and hail 30ft into our covered packing shed. Fifteen minutes of this, we lost power and water. From my experience, I knew what the awesome power of the storm had done, or so I had thought.
Spinach shredded into green confetti.
As the rain died on and the sun shone bright, I took the long walk to survey the damage done. Never had I seen, such destruction, the holes, tears and scrapes that I usually dread seeing after a hail were the least of problems. The storm had literally shredded into tiny pieces, what an hour before were perfect greens. Sparing nothing, it had left only stems on my young greens, and humbling me in an instant.
Corn stalks battered by the hail
This morning as I walked over other field, my eyes filled with tears as the beautiful sugar snaps we had put so much work into, looked like someone had sliced their tops off with a machete. The early corn I was so proud of was a shadow of its former self and the head lettuce I was eager to cut for this weeks market was beaten down to nothing.
To pour salt on the wound, now we must see the disappointment of our loyal customers, who enjoy our produce every week. I only hope they can bear with us during this tragic time.
This is farming and that’s how it goes sometimes. Now before we have time to feel sorry for ourselves we must pick up the pieces and go on. When the going gets tough...
Posted by Brett at 12:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hail: part two
Today we are busy evaluating the hail damage. Here are some photos today after some of the crops have perked back up a bit. Unfortunately, the damage to our greens has been extensive.
Hail shredded spinach
Bok choy beaten down
Red Russian Kale severed
Lettuce destroyed
Posted by Christine at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2005
Hail Horror
Hail attacked the farm today as the trucks were loading for the opening days at Bellevue and Lake City Farmers Markets. Falling for over 15 minutes, the hail ripped into our tender greens and left the farm covered in ice. We won't know until tomorrow just how extensive the damage is. At minimum, we predict we will not have any greens to harvest for 2-3 weeks. We know that we have lost berries and other vegetable crops as well. We will keep you posted.
Posted by Christine at 09:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2005
The farm is a changin'
There are noticable changes here at Willie Green's. The once laid back April's and early early may's are now a very busy time, we barely seem to get a break in winter anymore with the popularity of our C.S.A and early seedings of produce begining in January. The facilities are expanding from day to day, and we are constantly making improvements on every aspect of the farm. Years ago when I was still learning my ABC's a naive Jeff once said if he ever got a tractor he would quit farming, I'm sure he always figured on having a web site though:). But most amaizing to me is not the massively increased amount of produce we are growing, but the quality that we have maintaned. Jeff and I have worked tirelessly to bring our customers more of the produce they love while keeping our commintment to quality and even improving on it in most cases. As we enter our biggest year by far, we are both very excited to do the thing that never changes, consistantly please our customers.
Posted by Brett at 01:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 12, 2005
Front Page News!
CSAs were front page news for the USA Today. It was great to see some main stream attention given to this grassroots movement. The loss of farm land impacts us all, even if many are unaware. CSAs continue to be a vital means of preserving farm land and offer the additional benefits of reconnecting to the land and supporting local economies.
Posted by Christine at 03:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2005
It has begun
The first two weekend markets are behind us, only 319 more to go this year. It was great to be back in the market with it's high energy and smiling faces. All our customers were so happy to see us and eager to snatch up all those wonderfully sweet and tender spring greens. It is a very satisfying feeling to reconnect with all our customers and we thank all of you for your continued support!
Posted by Jeff at 09:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 06, 2005
12 hours 'til the bell
The sun is setting fast. The last of the greens have been cut and triple washed. Three men's hands race as they begin packing the bags of salad mix by hand. Florencio is rapidly washing the last case of radishes. The old farm van rumbles up the main drive from the other field, bringing in the last of the produce.
It is 9pm now, the "early" crew has just left for the day so they can come back early to load the truck and handle the last minute produce jobs. Two of us stay, hours still left in our work day, as the farm activities move inside to desks and computers.
See you in the morning!
Posted by Christine at 09:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2005
Surrender
Today's theme has been surrender. There are things that I can create, control or put in place by the time the markets open and things I can't. All those things that we said we would do during the off season of winter? Well, a lot got done but with our winter market/CSA last year and this year's extended market season, the winter felt darn short!
Somethings that we really thought that we would be bringing to the first markets just won't be on the tables. They need another week or so to really mature or to be in sufficient quantity to do a good harvest.
By surrending and accepting that not everything is exactly the way we want it, we can allow ourselves to truly appreciate what is going well. The market tables will have a good variety of tasty produce. We are offering our customers more ways to enjoy the produce. We have the skeleton of our new tracking systems in place. Life is good.
Posted by Christine at 08:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack