Dear friends,
We’re delighted to announce that sign-ups for our 2023 CSA program are now open to returning members.
We hope you will join us for another season of free-choice harvest selection, abundant u-pick gardens, and soil-born magic.
We have a long waitlist this year of folks looking for a spot in the CSA. We highly recommend that returning members sign-up within the next two weeks to reserve a spot!
EMPLOYEES LOOKING FOR HOUSING
We have a couple of wonderful farmers joining our crew next year who are looking for housing in or around Sebastopol. If you have, or know of, any one-bedrooms, studios, or shared housing situations, please let us know and we’ll pass the word on to them!
WINTER UPDATE
Well, the big news for Kayta and I this coming year is that we are expecting a baby in May!
We are beyond excited to welcome this little bean into the world and to be able to raise them in a community as special as this one.
To make room in our lives to become new parents, we have been planning an exciting year of growth for the farm. (To make space for a human baby, the farm baby must grow up!) To help relieve Kayta from fieldwork, and to lighten my load a little this coming year, we will have a larger and more experienced crew with us than ever before. There will be a couple of familiar faces and a few new ones. We can’t wait for you to meet them.
We also in the process of acquiring a larger tractor and are making some sorely needed upgrades to our field implements to relieve bottlenecks and increase the efficiency with which we prepare beds, plant, weed, and harvest.
Aside from these exciting developments, the winter has been relatively quiet on the farm. Ashlynn has been holding it down in the pack shed and garden, helping to prepare us for the season ahead and tending to the young sprouting garlic and strawberries, who are both just starting to spread their first leaves and find their feet.
The big rains of December and early January were consistently lighter than expected, so the Laguna flooding we experienced here was relatively normal and caused no damage to our equipment or buildings. We hope you all were spared the worst as well.
The other day, Kayta and I went on a magical evening walk.
We strolled down Cooper Rd. To Winter Sister to see if we could distract Anna. Then we crossed the marshland between our farms and headed south to the garden. In the fields in the distance, ducks and marsh birds glided and pecked in the standing water. A big Blue Heron stood statuesquely on the banks of a pool, camouflaged in the blue twilight.
Kayta stood in the middle of the garden, refreshed to be looking out at the physical space she had been planning in spreadsheets all day. I asked her what new flowers she was excited about seeing here next year. “Big ones,” she said, “the theme this year is big face flowers to bring contrast and vibrancy to all the small flowers.” She’s excited about a new, fragrant, large, white centaurea called “The Bride”; a new variety of sunflowers in classic colors; scented nicotiana grandiflora; and some quill-petaled Black Eyed Susan’s.
My gaze couldn’t help but drift from the rows of last years flowers to her belly, poking so cutely out from her coat.
It’s gonna be a beautiful year on the farm!
See you in the fields,
David & Kayta
