A glimpse into our BIG vision!

January seems to be grant writing season in the farm world. A financial push forward is often the thing we need in order to commit to a big project. In 2017 we were lucky to receive a grant from Lakewinds Co-op to start construction on our pack shed. That building has made the biggest difference imaginable to our business, and it still amazes me each time we can ROLL (like with wheels!) a pallet of CSA shares into our walk-in cooler!

We appreciate the process of grant writing, because it asks us to take a good look at our vision, why we do what we do. This year, we are again applying for the Lakewinds Organic Field Fund grant. We are hoping to fund a fencing project that will exclude deer from about 17 acres of our property. We only grow vegetables on about 1.5 of those acres... the rest will be planted to trees (natives, nut and fruit trees) and make space for grazing animals. Weather we get the funding or not, the process is good because it helps us crystallize our vision. I got so excited about what we wrote, I wanted to share it with you!

The specific question was: 
What are your goals and what is vision for the short-term and long-term future?We envision a world in which all people know how and where their food is grown and who grew it. A world where nutrient dense food is an affordable necessity and not a luxury. Where people connect to the land through their eating practices. Where the production of food (protein, grains and vegetables) contributes to a healthier planet. Where plants clean the air and water, healing the past century of pollution, and people work with animals to improve soil health. 
We are working towards creating this connection on our land and in our community. By improving soil quality and planting perennials, we are beginning a process of healing our land and our watershed. We are looking beyond ourselves as caretakers of this land. We aim to set up a farm that will carry future generations of farmers in prosperity without depleting the soil.
We intend to accomplish this by:

• Growing sales while decreasing physical labor (through no-till techniques) so that we can offer high quality vegetables at a competitive price without compromising our values.
• Developing no-till farming techniques for vegetable growing, specific to our region and sharing them with others.
• Interplanting our annual crop production with perennials to feed pollinators and beneficial insects.
• Increasing farm wide bio-diversity by planting swaths of tree crops that will mature over the next 5-40 years.
• Increasing soil health and biology by intensive rotational grazing of chickens and sheep.
• Planting thousands of fast growing perennial trees and bushes that will sequester carbon while they provide shade for grazing animals. 

It tickles me just re-reading it, now. I hope it excites you, too. Weather you are already a CSA member, or a dedicated weekly farmers market shopper, when you buy our vegetables, you are investing in this vision with us, and we are so grateful! 

Keep your fingers crossed for us, would you?
Les and Els