Okay, that title only works if your British, but I’m writing this near midnight and I’m bad at titles, so let's just get into it.    

   A year’s worth of planning and over half a year’s worth of work has all culminated this week into 5 Fedex vans full of bouquets and flower bundles heading off to Moms and loved ones around the country over the last 3 days.  One of the best parts of this job is to be a conduit for expressions of love, gratitude, or even sympathy from one person to another.  It truly is a fortunate place to be.  A real honor and it definitely fills our hearts.

   This week is always intense for us and there is a fair amount of build up and stress leading into it that is just unavoidable when you are relying on highly fragile and delicate lifeforms to survive for six months in relatively hostile conditions and come to peak maturity on the exact week that you need it to and then create a little Santa’s workshop and get all the elves to work frantically to create as much beauty as possible, pack it carefully, and ship it out to the world and hope no storms interfere with transit, or that no flowers die in the sun in the box on some unexpecting mom’s hot doorstep. (That may have been the longest sentence I’ve ever written.). 

   But (and you should never start a paragraph with a but), the thing that surfaced to me was that within that context of unavoidable stress, our farm team operated incredibly smoothly.  All the bumps and bruises and unforeseens that arise were collectively taken in stride and no major panics swallowed any of us this year.  It felt like maturity.  Like the farm knew its role and had a plan and stuck with it and weeded out as much inefficiency as possible and seemed to be just enough for us to handle at all times.  We did work long hours and long weeks and have eaten a lot of frozen meals, but we weren’t living in Fight or Flight like we have for so many years in the past.  We were just rising to the work load and dealing with it all as it came.

   I’m not gonna say I never complained that “this is all too much” at any point, but compared to years past (all 12 prior years of this farm), this one was the smoothest.  And (you’re never supposed to start a sentence with “and”) I know this might seem weird to be talking like it’s the end of the year, but for us (Mandy and I in particular) we’ve been 7 days a week for the last 7 months building to this week, which is the peak of our spring crescendo, so it very much feels like the end of a long year…to us.  On a personal, spiritual, holy moly we did it, sort of level.

   The farm continues.  We’ll still have flowers for a bit.  We’ll still be selling mum starts.  The webstore will be open.  The farm store for awhile longer too.  Mandy and I however, will start to work on the house that has floors crumbling between joists.  We’ll be adding a dishwasher (how have we made it this far without one!).  We’ll be putting in cabinets that aren’t falling apart, with drawers that actually open.  We’ll be servicing equipment, cutting dead and threatening trees, painting and repairing everything that needs it, and more importantly, taking evenings off, going into town for the occasional meal, visiting with friends and family and getting off the farm for a couple weeks here and there for a little r&r.  We’re pooped and ready for weekends.

   So, thank you to Rachel, Kali, Eh Plaw, Wah Sha, Hsut Po, Naw Dee Poe and Marry for navigating this winter and spring like true professionals.  We are grateful for all the effort, consideration, intelligence, and commitment you put into everything this spring.

   And thank you to everyone reading this and lifting us up.  It was a successful Spring and we look forward to a Fall filled with fields of beautiful dahlias.  But for now, we look forward to spending Mother’s Day with Mandy’s mom and starting to pump the breaks on the workload a bit.

   Happy weekend and Happy Mother’s Day y’all!

-Steve