This sweet new-to-us place is coming alive. With giant beautiful blooms of all sorts that will become apples and wild plums and other delicious things. The other morning Earl woke up and said, "mama, just listen to those birds!" I've been thinking about place a lot. And what it means to been in a place and love it and know it really well. I've been transient so often in my adult life that I hadn't really bonded to a place as an adult before our last place. I think people used to be much more rooted, now we can travel and up and go wherever we want. There is a beauty in that. There is also a beauty in being in one place, invested and rooted. 

No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.

- Seneca the Younger

I sent this quote to Mike last week. It's very windy here on this beautiful ridge, and a windy year anyway, and we are learning how to protect our charges from the wind, but also use it to our advantage. We're thankful for the wind that's teaching us to be better farmers, more of what really matters, and the raw beauty of its strength. We are definitely not in a sunny valley, but we have an incredible view, healthy, strong plants, and less bugs and disease (we hope) as the winds blow them away.

 

My phone camera was doing this weird postage stamp thing, and I didn't have time to figure it out. These are our newly planted beds in the glow of the sunset.

We have two functioning greenhouses, and many, many, many beautiful, healthy plants. We have a new cooler in the works in two weeks or so. We have a great new employee, Sarma, and wonderful volunteering family and friends. We have a pack shed in progress. 

We've gone all in on this dream of a farm life that is dependent on our skill and experience and knowledge, yes, but also on so many other variables that are out of our control like increasingly inconsistent weather, and new soil and new geography. Now we're in the reality all that excitement last year led up to. It's proving to be something on our hearts and minds.

We're all learning how to do new things like go off-farm to work, and off-farm to childcare, and how to plant in clay-based soil. We learning how to rest in the newness and the unknown and appreciate our bits of time together. We're learning how to better ask for and find what we need. We're learning how to problem solve together in the little bits of time we have, make a decision and go with it. We're building a foundation. We're building soil, the foundation for our beings. It's uncomfortable often, and a beautiful surprise sometimes, and all, at best, building our character. 

The crabapple and apple trees are stunning. They're unpruned, and need some care, but we got a lot of apples last year and they were delicious.

Nettle and ramp pizza, and dandelion green salad all harvested in our neighborhood. 

Yu-um.

 

 

We hope that you will all come to our place, our new farm, so you can know it a bit too. We're a little further off the beaten path, but we'll make it worth your drive. We love it here and are finding our way. Soon we'll have loads of flowers, and vegetables too this year! Mid-June we hope to start delivering to the Twin Cities.

Mwah,

Jennifer, Mike + Earl

We're in operation on our own little bit of hallowed ground! Those sweet babies will be the dianthus in your bouquets in June!

As you know, April 2015, we found out we would have to move by the end of the season. Our known Minnesota soil was a bit out of our price range, so we looked across the river in western Wisconsin and found a beautiful 16-acre farm on a ridge above the Eau Galle river valley. We had a wonderful loan officer through the Dunn County FSA office, and along with her, a team of professionals, family and friends supported our journey to farm ownership. We moved across the river into our sweet 1930's farmhouse, outbuildings and our very own Hersey silt loam soil fields in October 2015. We feel so fortunate, excited and nervous, of course, to farm our own land.

It's looking amazingly springish around here, complete with lots of mud.

The chickens and the compost and the trees and the grass are singing a little song of early spring.

Earl and his Oma are back in action, especially loving the wonderful Pierce County Nugget Lake park right down the road.

Seeding tables.

Seeds and seeds in hoops and hoops. We have little hoops in the bigger hoops for heating efficiency and cost. This season we may not even need it with these warm temps.

So very excited to share another season of flowers and food with y'all. See you sooner than later friends!

Be well xo,

Jennifer, Mike and Earl

HPF/GOE year in review, y'all! 

We put on our boots

and tilled in all our delicious over-wintered cover crops

to feed our most important livestock; soil microbes

starting where we all start, in the soil

little sprouts planted little sprouts

 

big sprouts planted little sprouts

(we found the best ever very first on the payroll employee ever, Emily)

and took time for some kisses in between planting and sprouting and soil-building

and wheel-barrow races 

we watered those little sprouts

Susan and Molly counted 'em (whew!)

and loaded 'em up

and took a little time to pose for an early crew photo

oh these beautiful people, inside and out

and we hosted some fun, fine events

and surprise, found our own dreamy piece of ground across the river in Wisco 

  but went back to work in Minnesnowta because 

well, we had a season of flowers and food to grow,

and then there was that time that the 50 mph gusts of wind blew our sunnies over, and our beautiful farm friends at GOE helped us stake them after their long hard days and we saved 'em

we hosted a field day with the Land Stewardship Project on the hottest day of the whole summer in July 

grow some flowers, we did

our dear friend and helper Amanda came along for another ride of a season 

 we survived, here's proof 

(thanks for these photos Tootie & Dotes)

we said "see ya later, dear farm family"

(thanks for this photo, MOSA)

and packed up our stuff, hit the road

and landed here. 

we wish you and yours the very best of 2016! we'll be in touch very soon about next seasons' flowers! 

Mwah!

J,M+E

Hello dear HPF friends! We're settling in to our new digs. We love our peaceful spot up on the ridge above Plum Creek, and the Eau Galle River. Nugget Lake Park is less than a mile away, a beautiful wooded Pierce County park with endangered Snow Trillium, and ramps in April as far as the eye can see. And, "thars gold in that there crick!" It's called Nugget Lake because thanks to an asteroid hitting the earth thousands of years ago, there has been gold found in the lake. You can still pan for it. Just another reason to come visit us in Wisco. You might just get rich!

Papa and Earl are getting things done around the farm in this late, late fall, and mama is bringing home the bacon. It's a big transition, and we're all doing our best to go slow, love each other up, sleep a lot, eat good fall food, and be present in the shortening days leading to winter. They say that this year's El Nino could be the strongest on record, and historically that means mild winters for Midwesterners. So far that's been true here, and we're grateful for the extra days to get the fields a little bit more ready for spring. It's wet and windy up here on our ridge, and it'll be interesting to see how our clay soil dries out in spring.

It's all so new, and there are so many variables. We were going to put up our greenhouse this fall, but decided to farm this land a year before we do anything semi-permanent. We need to know where the wind blows and the water flows, and what our new soil likes to grow. Mike has been pounding in stakes all week, and screwing in earth anchors, trying to get all the hardware in the ground for caterpillar tunnels to be anchored with PVC pipe, covered with plastic, and filled with flowers in spring.

We bought a new BCS walk behind tractor. It was a big, agonizing purchase, and it's a beauty despite a few weird quirks to begin. The bolts on the wheels weren't tightened in the factory, we guess, and both wheels pret' near fell off in the first few uses. It's humming along now, so we hope those days are behind us. 

Earl gathers soil for a soil test. I love his serious attention to detail. Greyjoy helped.

We have three new sibling rescue kitties, and they're so sweet. We're also dog-sitting Buddy for a few days while his mom, our friend Linda, is in Central America. Along with our thirteen chickens, we have a happy little human and animal family. We've also had lots of visitors and found our new co-op grocery in Menomonie, and the awesome library there, and a place for swimming lessons, etc. We're finding our community here, but mostly just finding each other after our busy year and of course, our new piece of ground. The biggest adjustment has been mama at off-farm work all day and papa and Earl keeping the home fires burning.

I love this photo because of the possibility it holds. As we embark on the week of celebrating giving thanks, and especially in light of the big reminders of the fragility of life on our beautiful, tumultuous globe, we reflect a bit more on all we have to be thankful for this season. Thanks so much for your support during our past season, and for joining us in the new chapter of our farm dream journey! We can't wait to fill this dirt with flowers, flowers and more flowers!

xoxo J,M+E