This Week's Notes 10/9...

    

     Frost came on Tuesday and you could probably sense the panic Tuesday evening as farmers everywhere ran around covering or pre-picking what they wanted to save, and you could probably hear the sigh of relief Wednesday morning as we all realized it was time to wind down. There is something aweful, yet satisfying about seeing your plants killed in an instant, but knowing the craziness of growing season is coming to an end is a relief. Jobs shift for us into making sure seeds are saved, plants are moved in and food is packed away! This year, I did the best job ever of succession planting and my running around Tuesday night was only to protect a bean crop that just began producing, the 3rd round of cucumbers, a couple Tomatillos and 1 Summer Squash plant. Dahlias, Peppers and Basil in pots were all moved into the hoophouse to give us all a couple extra weeks to let it all sink in!

   Next week, Tony is away and so Brian and I will need to do all the functions of this company. That combined with the lack of commercial kitchen & death of all tomatoes, led me to take down the fresh prep meal items for next week. I can revisit what makes sense for the following week.

   With my eggs slowing and none from other backyard flocks available, I had been debating what to do about Azuluna's eggs. We have always had a $20 delivery fee from them and the pricing of items reflects $1 per item to cover that. Unfortunately, we don't always hit selling 20 items a week with them which messes up everything. This week, I saw an additional $10 fuel surcharge on my bill and knew something had to be done. Instead of raising the price, like I would normally have to do, I decided to lower it! Crazy right? But hear me out! With only my dwindling egg supply available and eggs being such a staple, especially now in baking season, if we can hit 20 dozen eggs with Azuluna we cover the original shipping charge and then just need 10 other meat items ordered to cover the new fuel surcharge (which is a more regular order amount). So, let's give it a try this week and see what happens! I won't take offense if my eggs don't sell out, I am still juggling the cutting down our end of driveway people for winter and had to tell Tip Top I have none for them, plus I need to stock up my personal supply to buffer the slow down.

   Still Life Farm options are down for the next 2 weeks. With so many other farms offering similar items, orders just weren't large enough for her crew to pack easily. They will return once Winter Crop Shares return. They have sold 85% of their availability, so I'd encourage you to reserve yours now if you are thinking about it. With increased demand on all farms, things are selling out much faster than they used to, which means our individual items may be limited this year since fulfilling shares takes priority. I have reserved 1 share at this point to split up amoung our Seasonal Produce Packages and can only order more if I see support of that package increase ( or hear from you directly).

   So, as usual, lots going on in the farm world. In addition, I will applying for an agro-tourism grant through AirBnB next month (our neighbors turned the house at the end of our drive into an AirBnB, so we are figuring how best to attack next season, besides the Giant Arborvitae wall I purchased). If you have any ideas or feed back, we are focusing on tours and workshops with some sort of pick your own garden. We are hoping to use the grant money to build an open air structure, with electricity, that we can use for workshops and to put a fridge and freezer ( I told you I would make use of the things I bought for Deep Roots before they closed on me!) in for farm stand sales- I have a 1 out of 30 chance to win $10k!

   Still no baby cows, though I'm not sure how Daisy or Lucy can stand being so large and not letting them out! Maybe this weekend????

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