You know that feeling of overwhelm you sometimes get when you’re about to have a bunch of house-guests over? You know it will all be fine…but you can’t NOT obsess a little about whether you’ve taken out the trash, cleaned the bathroom, or tidied up the kitchen? Please tell me you can relate.
We’ve always known that educating our community about organic farming was one of farm’s purposes (remember this newsletter from earlier this year?), but it used to feel pretty nerve-wracking taking people behind the scenes and sharing our life’s work.
In the beginning, we stressed about the tours so much that in addition to all the insane tidying, we made flash cards and actually practiced what we were going to say and how we were going to say it. We knew we had big vision for our farm and so much to share… but the progress felt painstakingly slow at the start and not having the farm where we wanted it to be was frustrating.
We didn’t let those jitters and frustrations stop us, though. We hosted farm tours at any chance we got. We let people in, we showed them around, and shared what we were doing and why it is important. We talked honestly about the lessons we’d learned and how we were improving, overcoming obstacles and growing. In the process, we learned how to be ourselves and share about our passion for farming from the heart and on the fly (#nomoreflashcards).
It is this drive to make a big impact that has helped us get over those jitters and expand our farm. We now have hundreds of animals, a great big barn and beautiful pastures to stroll. We have farm systems that certainly have room for improvement, but that work great for our lean two-person crew. We have customers that we love to serve and tours that bring us so much joy and satisfaction.
Will we be seeing you at the tour this Saturday? We will start at 9am. Don’t forget to wear long pants and closed toe shoes. We can’t wait to show you what we’re working on.
Your Farmers,
Greg & Jenney