We ran the numbers on 2022 and the future is bright!

We know that this is the traditional time of year making plans and resolutions for the coming year and, like many, Martin and I will soon be making use of these shorter, darker days to plan and dream for 2023.

However we have realized that to have any chance of achieving future goals, it is of the utmost importance to first celebrate the successes we have already achieved!

Our natural survival instincts are to focus on all the things that went wrong, but that's not a helpful place to spend your time so it's worth the hard work to bend your mind to the positive.

And as we look back over the last year, we realize 2022 was full of reasons to celebrate.

Of course, the biggest and most important was welcoming Farmhand Baby Grace to the family way back in January!

And there were others, including a couple important and fun (for farmers) construction projects that I’ll be sharing in future emails over the winter.

But for us, other than bringing Baby Grace into this world, the achievement we are most proud of is continuing our mission of providing delicious food for you and all our customers.

Just for kicks (I’m an office nerd) I ran a few year-end reports and I’m so glad I did - our hearts are overjoyed and I want to share that with you because you are such an important part of everything we do.

In 2022 alone we provided over 26,000 pounds of regeneratively raised, humane, delicious and nutritious food for our friends and neighbors in the community!

What an honor that, in just the last year, over 325 families relied on us to nourish them and trusted us to provide only the most delicious, highest quality food.

And that doesn’t include our customers whom we never meet – those who shop at the Food Coop or the Corner Farmstand or buy our food already prepared so deliciously by venues like Finnriver Cidery or Crust Bakery.

What joy and HOPE that gives us for the future – and I don’t mean ours alone!

Often you hear that small farms can’t feed the world.

But with numbers like that from our VERY small farm, it seems like maybe we shouldn’t say “can’t” until we’ve at least tried!

It is reflecting on positive results like these that gives us such resolve when life happens and, say, a bizarre November windstorm blows through and the plastic shreds off the high tunnel hoop house you were about to put all your young hens in for the winter…

Which leads me to another tangible, happy success that we managed to squeeze into the very tail end of 2022.

After the previous several crazy weeks of weather that we all just lived through, last week we were blessed with a CALM and SUNNY day which, in conjunction with the arrival of a few extra helping hands, allowed us to stretch new plastic over the hoop house. Whoop whoop!

Just a few more finishing touches and we’ll be ready to move in the 400 young hens that will start laying eggs for you in just over two months!!

On that note - as a supporter of small scale local food it’s no surprise to you that this time of year we run out of eggs early every week and not everyone can get as many as they want.

So here’s a fun fact so you don’t think ill of our resting hens… in 2022 they laid over 3,500 dozen eggs.

That’s 42,000 eggs! I guess they can have a short break. LOL.

In 2023 we look forward to continuing to be your direct connection to your food and to the earth that sustains us.

Here’s to all of us, in this crazy, beautiful life together!

We breathed a deep sigh of relief when we anchored the last stretch of the new plastic on the hoop house before the wind began to blow! Once that was done our hands were free to empty all the sawdust from the Farmhands' boots - the chickens are going to need it soon ;)