12/20/2022
Sharing the following update with a flurry of late season farm photos. Next season I (Wintercreek) will be taking a break from farming as I have been doing it. I’ll still be tending a few crops commercially on a teeny small scale, but am putting a pause on the “market garden” as Wintercreek has been operating. “A year in cover crop,” we’ve joked, but I think it will be that actually and also metaphorically. I’ve mostly said to people it’s because of “personal reasons,” or because I need more time with my daughter, which are true, but are also just part of the picture and really over simplify things. Just in service to the greater discussion around the “sustainability” of small farms, their viability, the challenges of them, the relative value of their actual contributions, their “worth it-ness,” I think I am also taking a break because it’s been really hard. Emotionally, physically, financially. I’m so blessed to have the life I do, and I am not sharing this without an understanding of that context. Just saying, it’s been all the things- both abundant and stressful, fulfilling and soul killing, successful and not. I’m not prepared to explain it all here but wanted to share a bit about this in my update, for the purpose of people interested in farms and food having real conversations about what’s really needed in the pursuit of our lofty goals for the world. Happy solstice!
