Happy Friday y’all!Spring and winter are swirling together lately. Some days are so warm that we are sweaty and uncomfortable and then we’re hit with strong winds and freezing nights. You can tell it is later in spring, though, by the radiant effect of the earth. A warm day after a lot of cold is extra refreshing, because though the air is warm, the earth itself and every item of mass (trees, rocks, buildings) is radiating cold. That differential is what feels so refreshing to me. It works in reverse too. A fresh cool breeze while the earth is radiating warmth is so much better than a cool breeze on a cool day when everything around you is cold. I...

It’s warming up out here. Back to that time of year when it’s risky to run across the farm with your mouth open. The wingers with stingers have all burst forth from their pupae and are looking for a nesting site. In this newborn phase, our local wasps are much more inclined to linger and land. They aren’t going from hither to thither with great purpose and clear intent, but rather seem to be almost confusedly flitting about in great numbers, constantly buzzing my tower. Like a drunk guy on Bourbon street that keeps stumbling in elliptical orbit into and out of your personal space, stumbling away, then back again. Probably harmless and confused, but still annoying, with a hint...

I grew up in the suburbs and had a childhood kinda like the kids in E.T. Without the alien. Disappearing on bikes miles and miles away only to return at dark. Splashing around in creeks, cardboard sliding down country hills. Flashlight tag, egg wars, skateboard ramps, a touch of mischief, the occasional fight, but all in all I had it pretty easy. In my early 20’s I was struck with what I can only characterize as an intense aversion to my status quo based trajectory and found myself engulfed in an overpowering desire for meaning. It was burning me up. My passion was enormous, my compass swinging wildly, my emotions oscillating between ecstatic and devastated constantly, I took on the...

Happy Friday y’all! The pace is picking up out here. It’s that time of year when you feel the tide rise around you pretty quickly and realize you gotta get swimming a little faster. Spirits are still high, but you can feel that nipping sensation at your heels and an awareness that the stakes have just gone up. Though it's never awesome to feel your stress levels increase, it does mean that you’re invested in the outcome. Mandy and I have lived like that 7 days a week as long as I can remember. We desperately care. We’re a little on the fanatical end of the scale in our life approach. We are compelled to try and do everything as...

Happy Friday y’all! It’s been a cold cold week for most of you. I hope you are faring well. We’ve had some strong winds and a cold day or two, but nothing like most of you. Last night was in the teens and yesterday evening’s walk through the woods to see the hellebores had my fingers burning with searing pain from the cold. I wasn’t dressed for it, but I’m not built for it either. Can’t imagine you folks living in areas with sub-zero temps. Y’all are tough. Spring is threatening out here. Even through the blanket of cold and wet that we’ve been experiencing these last 2 weeks, we can feel winter’s seams about to bust. Spring’s tendrils are...

Happy Friday y’all!  Sorry for the absence last week.  Mandy and I were at the SOWTH conference speaking to other farmers about the importance of newsletters lol.  I didn’t write a newsletter, because I was talking about newsletters.  The gist of the presentation being that a newsletter is so much better at connecting you with your community than social media is these days.  Social media has degraded significantly in so many ways and we’ve found these newsletters to be a more wholistic way to share a bit about life on the farm with people who are curious and engaged vs. the social media world which feels like a desperate competition for the attention of people who are hypnotized into frantically...

Happy Friday Y’all! There’s excitement brewing out here! We had our first warm day. I had my first mosquito bite. The forecast has all warm days and nights. The Icelandic poppy tunnel is full of stems that this warmth will push into fully being. The sleepy and cold stunted ranunculus, butterfly ranunculus, daffodils, Italian poppies, hellebores, and anemones will truly begin to wake up in time for spring. Our new hires have all been out for a visit and met with all of us and toured the farm. Systems that were nebulously forming in our minds for months are now taking real shape and the mild trepidation permeating through our farm this winter seems to have turned into high spirits...

Happy Friday friends! Not much to report here. This week’s cold, ice, and a little snow kept our staff from coming in most of the week. Undeterred, Mandy has been cleaning and organizing like crazy, so there are racks, rubbermaids, tables, and materials of all kinds moving from one place to the next as she cleans, paints, and does bits of carpentry with her new battery powered circular saw (loves it). Fun fact, when Mandy and I started dating in 2006 and we moved her across the country to CA, we got her a job doing construction with my old boss and my brother, while I did Timber Framing at a business across the street. We’d meet for lunch covered...

  Happy Friday y’all!  I hope you had a nice week.  No major news to report here.  We did ship out our first 3 flower bundles of the year though.  2 anemones and 1 pastel poppy bundle.  We’ve got a lot of cold weather coming, so I don’t expect a big flush of blooms anytime soon, but we may continue to trickle out a bundle hear and there as they present themselves.  There may be more snow upcoming.  Our weather apps are flip flopping from as much as 5” to as little as nothing.  I’ve mixed emotions.  Last week’s snow was probably the most fun we’ve had in years.  We finished our morning’s work, put on some velour track suits,...

  Happy Friday and Happy New Year y’all!        Thank you for joining us as we start a new year and for following along each week as we bounce our way through the seasons.  We truly appreciate all of your support and for making our 2024 a great year.  We’re hoping to get as many flowers and even more flowering plants out into this country’s homes and gardens in 2025 and to share the highlights and hardships along the way, so you can keep getting a glimpse through our weekly word filled window into the wild world of how to grow an unusual flower farm in the south .     During the break, Mandy started walking the dogs down the old...