Weekly News from the Farm

Greetings Everyone,

We hope you all had a great holiday season and we’re wishing you the best in realizing your hopes and dreams  for 2019!!!!  To us here on the farm, it seems that the new year is off to a wet start, but that could be because we’re trying to focus on outdoor projects that we set aside when we began diversifying into offering lodging here at the farm.  We’re certainly hopeful that the ground dries a bit and we don’t have record rainfall like we experienced in 2018.  In reviewing our production records, we see that our yield per acre in 2018 was nearly identical to what we experienced in 2013 which were among our our lowest yields recorded, and many of you are probably aware that 2013 just happens to be the 2nd most rainfall in recorded history, only after 2018.  On the bright side in reviewing our records, 2014 was among our best yields over the 20 years we’ve been farming, so we are hopeful that the ground will dry and the 2019 growing season will be fruitful!

We’re incredibly thankful to have launched our accommodations in 2018 because they saved us from having to sell the farm.  We were surprised that our guests found touring the farm interesting, had such gratitude for the farm fresh food and especially enjoyed exploring our pollinator gardens.  We’ve always prioritized planting the pollinator flowers out in the fields among the veggies because of its importance as a food source for the butterflies and bees, so it was nice that guests understand the significance of the gardens.

You will probably need to white list our email to receive correspondence from us because we have changed our email from farmer@MountainHarvestOrganic.com to Farmer@MountainHarvestOrganics.com (our email is organics plural).

Your Farmers (and cleaning staff),
Carl and Julie

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In early December we spent time closing the Thistle Glamping site for the season, just to assure that the water lines didn’t freeze, and to save on our utility bills.  That means we’ve disconnected the water lines, emptied the black water tank and drained the hot tub.  We’ve filled all the camper p-traps and hot tub plumbing with RV antifreeze and won’t know until April in 2019 if we correctly weatherized the camper.  It has been our experience in years past when winterizing the Swallow’s Nest Barn Loft, that there is always some plumbing part that had a little water in, which then froze and had to be replaced.  We’re incredibly thankful for everyone who chose to stay at with us this year because your support is helping the aging farmers here transition into Agritourism! While we’re closing this site for the season, we can’t wait to open it again in 2019. 

We had guests scheduled to stay at the Thistle during Diego; however, right before the storm arrived we messaged them our weather forecast and encouraged them to cancel, and are thankful they did.  While we didn’t lose power, quite a few white and virginia pine trees snapped in half, blocking the road.   

Fortunately, we didn’t have anyone staying at the Thistle, so we could re-prioritize our farming schedule, and clear the road of the debris. We’re glad our guests canceled, because it never crossed our mind of the need to clear the road of snow to the site, and believe that a 2WD car wouldn’t have been able to make it up to the site on the snow packed roads.  Lesson learned, we’ll close that site the first of December in 2019, because from our experience in the Mountains we almost always have snowfall in December.

Many of you readers helped raise the timber frame pavilion a couple years ago, and as either you’ve come to the farm to pick up your groceries, passed by the farm, or have inquired about the roof, you’ve seen that we hadn’t yet put a roof on the building.  We didn’t want you to waste your time helping us raise it only for us to let it to rot, so we’re proud that the roofing job finally made it to priority #1 on our “to do” list and that the structure hasn’t yet rotted.  We are lucky enough to have found all the sheathing for the roof down at the sawmill and that it too didn’t yet rot,  now that we’ve uncovered it from the weeds, you can see Kaiser has felt the need to guard that lumber.  We are thankful to have stickered that lumber after we cut it because it is in good shape.

We’ve switched gears and prioritized roofing and siding the well house that supplies the accommodations with water. Thank goodness, because we think the zip wall roof sheathing would have delaminated if left out in the weather elements for another year. We built the well house nearly a year and a half ago, and invested all our annual earnings into this, but it is an incredibly important resource for our Glamping and cabin site. One can’t have visitors without access to water.  (As you can see, Kaiser has switched jobs from Livestock/Veggie guardian to Supervisor of humans!!!)