September Reflections (4 years?!)

As cool weather reminds us to go back inside and put on an extra layer in the morning, the sun also hints at the same change as darkness comes earlier every evening. September marks change with broad brush strokes, like a four-year-old painting with watercolors for the first time. Weather, daylight, school to name a few, are present in our minds as the calendar marks that arbitrary moment when we turn the page to a new month.

Fall always reminds me of the rhythm of life; there is always change, even in July when it seems as though summer will last forever. In many ways of thinking the season of fall is the time of looking inward, of introspection and even grief. And so as the calendar page turns I am looking inward and behind.

One lens through which to look backwards is this very email. A little over four years ago I set a small, inward goal to write every week; to share something from my heart. During these four years much has changed and many things have remained the same. In the spirit of the coming fall and the close of the fourth year of writing I will share some of my reflections as I look back through all that has come and gone.

As a parent the pictures of Lewis and Lovett are striking, to see them as they were 4 years ago: often naked and with varying haircuts. The spring and summer of 2020 are particularly poignant as I remember the time during lockdown on the farm with just us.

Watching our business grow and change through the weekly updates is also emotional for me. Here are some standouts as I traversed the switchbacks of the last four years:

• In the spring of 2020 we had just over 200 subscribers to our email list. At the time of this writing we have almost 1,700 subscribers!
• In 2020 we packed over 500 orders. In 2024 we have already packed over 1,128 orders and we’re only just done with August.
• 2020 marked a concerted effort to raise enough chicken to support our customers. We built a new style of coop, a new brooder and added new processing equipment. We raised 2700 chickens in 2020 (which was more than double the year before). In 2024 we will raise 8,500 chickens!

The last four years have marked growth and perspective on life for our family in many ways. 2020 brought us a new view on health and sickness with the onset of the Covid pandemic. 2021 was marked by a summer in bed, sciatic pain, healing and introspection. In 2022 Racey had her own time in bed after cancer cells were found in her cervix and the subsequent surgery and recovery. 2023 was so many things, in hindsight it was the time of processing the past two years. And here we are in 2024, Racey and I are collaborating more than ever in our business with the intention of working together. We have an amazing team, I am a certified Somatic Coach and we are hosting our very first Retreat on the Farm this month!

My Top 11 Posts (10 was too hard):

Personal

The Clanking Rhythm of Change

On Saturday our friends at Essex Farm hosted a farm auction. For those of you who have never sold or purchased anything through a farm auction it is like no other social gathering that I have experienced. Many folks go to an auction just for fun. Auctioneers really rattle off prices with that sing-song voice…

Change and the many ways it comes.

Happy/Sad

A picture can be worth a thousand words, and mean a thousand different things. This week was just that, a week with many meanings. I have been searching for the ways and words to describe and convey what this week has already taught me. The picture above is the best I can do. At first…

A reflection on Racey’s diagnosis and the strength to bend to the winds of life.

Some

I will return to my introductions next week. This week I’ve been thinking about how our children have “processed” my “injury.” It has been almost two months since I suddenly found it far too painful to walk, let alone move about my daily life. I was reflecting recently about how differently our children react to...

Noticing how Lewis and Lovett adjust to my summer in bed.

Peace Through Pain

We got a lot of good name suggestions for Rose’s foal: Reba, Lena, Ronnie, Polyantha, Floribunda, Whipper and Edith. Edith, or Edie for short, hit home for us. Not only is it my Mom’s name, who has been a huge help the past few weeks, but it was also the name of two dear...

The beginning of my healing journey.

Learning

Nitrates & Nitrites: Know Your Food

We are what we eat, right? For our family, this philosophy is a part of why we raise our animals on pasture, feed organic grain to our chickens, and our cattle only eat grass. However, as we’ve learned, raising a happy, healthy animal is only part of the picture. We then have to process the...

What are nitrates and how can I make my own informed food choices.

Non-GMO, Conventional & Organic: What Do They Mean?

You are what you eat. We live by this old adage. We started our farm based on the principles that we have that define what we eat. For beef animals this is an easy choice: they eat grass and only grass. Ruminants and their complex stomach system are designed to be take the complex cellulose...

Organic, non GMO, conventional, we hear these words and see them on food labels, but what do they mean?

Corn Queen

On a recent trip to stay with some farmer friends in western Massachusetts, they served us fresh homemade tortillas with an impressive array of farm fresh toppings. A disproportionate amount of our family meals are burritos/tacos and so this was a familiar meal. However the flavor and fresh taste of the tortillas was a revelation...

The incredible power and history of corn.

Farm Updates

We Need Your Help

If you’ve been considering placing an order this month, help us out and place it now! If we get enough orders to pack on Monday then you can save me an expensive trip across the ferry to a freezer storage facility in VT. Tell you friends and neighbors, help us make room by filling your...

Our most viewed blog post, we called for help since our freezers were too full and the response was huge and inspiring!

Foul Weather

Late spring is exhausting. I always forget, and wonder to myself at just about this time each year, “Why am I so overwhelmed?” This week was a doozie, and I (Racey) am writing because Nathan is flat on his back with debilitating sciatic pain. We started the week with the news that Nathan’s Grandma had...

Racey’s update when I came home and could not walk.

Appreciation

New Year’s Home

On Wednesday of this week we packed up our bags for the last time, loaded them into our car and started the last leg of our trip to our “Essex Home.” We’ve had a few different places we called home in the last six weeks of living away from the farm. For Lewis and Lovett...

Finding home and all meanings of the place.

The Music of Farming

I believe in a natural rhythm of things. Rhythm of life, weather, work, natural systems, farm ecosystems, and relationships to name a few, like the music of life. I often struggle to see or feel the music, getting caught up in what I’m doing. I tune out the background noise like the car radio when...

Reflections on rhythm, music and my father on father’s day.

Thank you to everyone who reads my words. I smile every time I hear the joy and appreciation from someone who reads our weekly thoughts.

In gratitude,

Nathan