This Week’s Harvest
Salad Mix
Flat Leaf Parsley or Cilantro
Cabbage
Butternut Squash or Delicata Squash
Shallots
Potatoes
Broccoli
Farm News
For a couple of years, I’ve been listening to StartUp, a podcast about starting a company and find that much of what I hear resonates with me. Even though Mile Creek Farm could be considered old (we are in our 9th season) and we are not interested in rapid enormous growth, and our farm is about as far away from Silicon Valley as possible, I still very much feel like a startup. The endless equipment upgrades, improvements made to the soil and infrastructure, continued tweaking of our operation, and our own growing understanding of organic farming make the farm feel like it’s still in its infancy.
In an episode of StartUp this week, the founder and his wife discuss the decision she made a year ago to quit her job and come work for his company, Gimlet Media (the startup in question). She didn’t have any regrets but was reflecting on hardships she hadn’t anticipated. Now that they live and work together, all the worries they experience are shared and she misses “the diversification of worry” they once had. I could totally relate!
Ben and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on Friday, so I’ve been reflecting on the life we’ve built starting a family, growing a business, and working together every single day in the same place that we live, and, as a result, our lack of diversification of worry. We’ve dealt with this in unspoken rules and actions that seem to come naturally. Mainly only one of us is allowed to be stressed out at a time! And we do have one spoken rule that sometimes gets broken: no talking about the farm after 9pm! Our dynamic is good and the life we’ve built comes very naturally, but every year we discuss ways to improve our work/life balance and combat our lack of diversification of worry. This work can easily get brushed off to the side with the day to day demands of the farm, but it is crucial–after all a sustainable farm is only sustainable if its farmers keep farming.
It’s been a magnificent 10 years and we are looking forward to working this land together for as long as we are physically able!
Recipes
Roasted Beets and Butternut Squash (roast a separate tray for turnips and radishes too! I think the more the merrier when it comes to roasted vegetables)
Breakfast Salad (with potatoes, cabbage and egg)