Howdy Folks,

  We’re doing our thing in this oddly pleasant weather.  We’ve been having 60 degree nights and 70-80 degree days for awhile.  No frost yet.  Our first year out here in 2011, we already had a 19 degree night by this time of year. This is massively different. Consistent weather patterns are a farmer’s friend.  Inconsistent weather patterns, even if they are occasionally pleasant, are more challenging and can often be a threat.  

  Oh well.  Constantly practicing being okay with unwanted change out here.  Accept what is, release your grip on what you hoped “now” would hold, take notice of what you have to be grateful for, revel in that gratitude as fully as you can, and adjust to your new reality as best you can.  That is how we took this farm from two skinny kids with a tiller and a dream, to the large, living, breathing, many armed organism it has become.

Every season we are met with a multitude of setbacks and endure multiple failures.  Some small, some large, and some almost existential. Each time, we lick our wounds, learn our lessons, pick ourselves up, and try again, armed with a new perspective, deeper humility, and hopefully a bit more wisdom.  There is no set of skills that has served either of us better in this life than those.  Accept what is, adapt to the new reality, start again with renewed enthusiasm and insight, and find gratitude for whatever you can.

  If you are a new farmer and feel overwhelmed and as though you are uniquely bad at what you are doing, just know that every new farmer goes through that.  It’s impossible to escape.  It’s the part you don’t see on instagram, but it’s every bit as real as those pretty pictures of petals.  Take comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone and do what you can to make connections with peers who you can share experiences with over the years.  You’ll lean on each other for information and occasional sympathy as time passes and the good will and good info bounces back and forth from year to year, lifting everyone up bit by bit.

  It’s a strangely isolating and unique lifestyle to adopt and impossible for anyone else outside that lifestyle to relate to no matter how genuine and well intentioned their attempts to relate may be, so finding your farmer friends for the first time is such a feeling of relief in being truly understood that it almost approaches the level of epiphany.  At least it did for me.  Anyways….I aimed this ramble at new farmers, but the skillset still applies to pretty much any human life.

  Different people hone those skills in different ways, but for me it was meditation.  I was a bit of a basket case before I started and I don’t think I’d have made it this far if I didn’t adopt a strong practice 20 years ago. So helpful.  But I digress.  Ramble complete

Mandy, Kali, Sarah, Grace, and Rachel have been collaborating a lot in the mums lately in an effort to curate all the best info and images for all you flower lovers and flower growers out there.  The website is getting populated with much better images and information so y’all can have a better sense of what’s what and can make more informed decisions about what’s the best flower for you.  It’s fun watching the lingo from Sarah’s background as a greenhouse grower and Kali’s background as a floral designer encounter each other and find that it’s not exactly the same language being spoken.  With that awareness more acute on our end, we aim to speak to both grower and designer with our descriptions.

  The Georgia clay based, mica filled, earthen plaster walls that I made with Mandy’s father Tony so many years back, in the studio, are finally fulfilling their potential.  I designed it so that Mandy would have a perfectly dreamy backdrop to photograph her floral designs with.  Of course we stopped doing design work almost immediately after I built the studio, so that didn’t ever come to fruition, but this month, Kali found a location, learned her light, and is making a star out of each variety in front of that wall and doing Tony and me proud.

  I steamed the final beds of the greenhouses yesterday, while Mandy laid thousands of feet of irrigation to get our poppy plants ready for planting.  We are on a mad dash to clean up the farm and make it look perrrty in anticipation of a photo shoot with Southern Living next week.  They’re coming to check out our mums, but we gotta wrap up the 100 other projects in various stages of completion in order to make ourselves presentable.  We’ll get there, but I’m sure it’ll be a bit of a hustle through the weekend and right up until the last minute.

  Wishing you all a restful and rejuvenating weekend at a beautiful spot in nature or with wonderful and supportive people.

Be well y’all,

Steve