When we launched our farm website in 2015, I was full of great intentions when it came to the blog section:

Weekly posts? Too much? Maybe I’ll stick to bi-weekly – maybe that will be more manageable. Yes. That should do it. I can do that.

Then our first baby arrived. Then I took on another off-farm job. Then our second baby arrived. Now it’s 2020 and I’m finally turning attention to this blog again. Oops.

So, for those of you who have been hovering and hitting refresh on our blog for several years now and experiencing repeated disappointment, this is probably a great relief! This is also probably a good moment to mention that there’s no guarantee that this post will not be followed by another (potentially very) long pause…

While there has been radio silence on the blog side, there has been no slowing down on the farm itself. In 2019, we had our 5th season of selling at the Mabou Farmers’ Market. Each season has been bigger and better than the one before. We’ve been learning more, growing more, sharing the farm with new WWOOFers every year, raising our boys, and having a great time. Most of the time – let’s not pretend that there aren’t also lots of challenges along the way.

A Change in Course

Part of what has inspired this (again, possibly brief) return to the blog is our now being in the time of COVID-19. And the changes this is meaning to our 2020 season. It’s possible that our beloved Mabou Farmers’ Market may not open for the season – at least not the whole season and at least not in its regular form – and this is requiring us to do some quick thinking to redesign our sales plan for this year. 

This is tough because I’m a planner by nature – and also by MSc. Normally, if we were to develop a whole new system for getting our food to our customers – we’d probably be spending at least the whole winter prior designing it. Instead, this is happening quickly over the course of only a few weeks. Even though it’s not how I’d normally choose to do it – this has actually proven to be very exciting undertaking!

In 2020, we are launching (*drumroll*) our inaugural CSA! This is something that we’ve actually thought about for a very long time – but it has taken the potential absence of the Mabou Market this season to give us the extra push we needed to set the wheels in motion. If it’s not already posted on this website, you’ll soon be able to see a whole page dedicated to the details of our brand new CSA. How exciting!

This has been a time where being a small-scale, diversified farm has been a real benefit to us. It means that we can be nimble. We can (buzzword alert) pivot. We can adjust to present realities. We grow a bit more of this – a bit less of that. We only sell directly to our community – and our community is still there and more eager than ever to be able to source and eat good, local food. 

The Big Picture

We’ve been thrilled with the current surge of interest we are seeing in food and food systems – and we share the hope of so many other food actors that this focus on food will carry on long beyond COVID-19. That we will not “go back to normal” but move ahead into a better, much more resilient local food system. 

So, check out the details of our new CSA if you’re interested. Don’t hold your breath on a new blog post in this space any time soon. And know that we’re sending out best wishes to all for a safe and healthy 2020 – that includes a lot of wonderful, local food!

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