This week at the farm we’ve been harvesting and processing tons of beautiful mums, prepping and planting more beds in our tunnels, troubleshooting problems with our heaters, playing with puppies, and spending some much appreciated time with my family who are visiting from CA.  

  My whole family was out in the woods on Monday cleaning up the landscape, moving bushes and logs, and building a roof over the old porch at the cabin.  Wednesday my dad and brother helped me to start building a second porch on the cabin.  This one will be around back and will give us the perfect space to just sit in the woods and take it all in.  No view of the farm or work at all.  Just trees, squirrels, and birds.  We need that.  It’s so hard to turn off the work brain when you are constantly surrounded by your job and everywhere you look there is a project.  This deck will be our little “getaway” and I’m grateful to my fam for making it happen.

  So many mums came out of tunnel 1 that the ladies were buried in them and the walk in coolers were stocked front to back, floor to ceiling.  A lot of people are going to have some serious stunners in their house for next week’s holiday celebrations. There was a huge demand and to our surprise, it was our biggest shipping day to date with almost 300 boxes going out.  We didn’t think of Thanksgiving as a big flower holiday, but the demand was overwhelming and I’m really happy the mum timing worked out just right so that we were able to fill so many orders.  Mo came back to help us out (Thanks Mo!) and we had all 7 of us hustling all day yesterday to carefully pack each order for its journey. It was cold, but went surprisingly smoothly. Mandy gets kudos for orchestrating an assembly line with a smooth work flow. Thanks Mandy.

  It was quite different shipping flowers into a cold cold United States, so instead of biodegradable ice-packs, we used biodegradable insulation to wrap each bundle to ensure that the flowers would avoid a frost in transit.  We also had to arrange for Fedex to send a second truck yesterday so we could ensure all the boxes would fit!  They are starting to arrive at doorsteps as I write this and should all be at their destinations by the time this newsletter goes out.  It’s kind of fascinating how quickly they get to their destinations once they leave our studio.

  These were our last flowers for the year, so we want to say a hardy thank you to everyone who sent flowers to loved ones or purchased them for their homes and events in 2022!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!  Your support means the world to us and our employees.  The better the farm does, the better we can support them and that is ultimately our goal, so Thank you Thank you!!

   For you locals, the farm store is being re-stocked with new, unique, and beautiful pottery and wood turnings from the ever-fabulous Tony and Linda Rovolis.  There will be a great selection all the way through the end of year holidays. We have the last mums of the year in there and will keep it fully stocked until they sell out (could be today, but may last until tomorrow). 

  Today, we’ll be planting spring flowers in the tunnels, perhaps working a bit more on the cabin construction, taking care of plant babies, and then cutting out of work early to finally get my family over to Tony and Linda’s house.  We have the rare good fortune that our families adore each other.  My peeps all live 3,000 miles away, so we rarely get the pleasure of getting together, so we are looking forward to a meal and a few laughs today.

  I hope y’all have a great weekend and stay warm.  Stay thankful!  It makes the heart bigger, the smiles wider and the world better.

-Steve