Happy Friday y’all! I’m looking forward to this weekend because we gots stuff happening in this Mayberry of a town we call Comer.Fourteen years ago when we drove across country with all of our belongings (mostly tools and bee boxes) in 2 trailers. It was a harrowing adventure. We got a flat tire on a trailer just leaving the driveway. That set the tone for the whole trip. 5 flat tires, 2 failed fuel pumps, a faulty ignition switch, some electrical problems, a trailer that almost flipped, a jack that busted and almost dropped the whole car on my leg, and much of that in the dessert Southwest during the heat of late summer. We slept nights in the tiny...

It’s Thursday evening and I’m sitting outside in the faint breeze with a couple of the neighbor’s dogs. It’s been a muggy day, our first of many, and the breeze and shade of a Japanese maple are kindly taking the edge off. It’s quiet, but for the occasional sighing exhale of Chaos, the birds chirping, guineas cacophonously being guineas, and Kali and Naomi laughing over in the studio while trying to film a video for Instagram and realizing the absurdity of all the little details required to do something like that in a way that seems effortless to the viewer. Everything is blooming on the farm! We are smack dab in the middle of Georgia spring here. Dogwoods blooming, spirea...

Happy Friday y’all!The mornings have been beautiful out here. The snowball viburnums are bursting with crisp whiteness, the purple lunaria is springing forth from the undergrowth, daffodils are still popping, the first iris has sprung up, the witch hazel continues to be fragrant, the mulberry tree is full with green fruit, the pineapple pears are already thumb sized, and the world is bathed in pollen. Butterfly Ranunculus sparkling and shimmering in the tunnels! Our butterfly ranunculus are having a moment in the tunnels right now, and I highly recommend them if you’ve not had them in a vase before. A lesser known flowering delight, whose super power is that it is covered in buds and every single one of them will...

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...