04/28/2026
We said goodbye to our sweet Maple last week. She was by our side for 11 years, through the youthful and naive development of our farm, and her passing marks the certain end of our beginning farm years.
Maple was in every action showing us how to commit to being present, to slow down, to sniff the dandelions, chase the bees, bark at the wind, roll in the grass. What the quixotic “Slow Farming” or “Slow Food/Flowers” phrase/ movement/romanticizing of small farms doesn’t convey is that running a farm is the opposite of slow. Farming means being swallowed up by urgent and important tasks, and moving with it all efficiently enough to make a meager living can leave you working in your body, on the farm, seemingly in the moment, but the pressure and speed of it all can leave you so rushed, exploited and separated from being present in the season and in a sense of place. This is when Maple would find you. She saw the farm for what it should be seen and taken in as everyday, slowly and intentionally. She was always eager to participate in whatever Maria, Daniel and I were doing.
We will miss her spunky personality, her parading strides alongside the harvesting gator, night walks up the long driveway by the pond, drinking out of our harvest buckets, climbing into the van after market to sniff all the goods, leaning the back of her body into your legs when she wanted a good rub down, combing through her coat for the nightly tick checks, and all the small daily routines she was our companion through, making the heavy farm days much lighter.
We are happy that she made it to the start of spring. All her friends came back to say goodbye; the peepers and wood frogs singing, the migratory birds returned to the pond, the coydogs howling in the back field at dusk, the garden snakes in the hay spooked her, the first anemones and tulips she watched us plant bloomed, she got to roll in the new growth of the lawn, and soak up the warm sky of a new farm season on her favorite sunbathing perches. The farm is quiet and empty without her, and yet in all the stillness, it is alive again. The farm is forever yours, Maple. 🍁 ❤️