The berries are covered with straw and the straw mulcher is shedded for another year. Onions,
root crops and kale are still coming out of the packing barn for upper valley stores and food
shelves, but things are definitely succumbing to winter mode. Up in the prop greenhouse stock
plants are beginning to give over to trays of cuttings for spring sales and seeding will begin in
earnest after the first of the year. With its supplemental lighting and winter glow, my neighbor
Roger refers to it as ‘Pooh’s Nuclear Greenhouse.” Paper work seems to be overwhelming, seed
orders need to be drawn up and sent out. The lingering snow and cold temps that descended upon
us Thanksgiving day certainly are giving Edgewater an appearance of Christmas and a farm
knuckling down for a long winter’s night..
In another blink of an eye a year goes by, and in many ways hardly distinguishable from any others
in recent memory. We have an “age in place” work crew that continues to show up and the
weather continues to challenge us as well as all farmers in New England. We were very fortunate
not to experience the flooding to which the Northeast Kingdom was subjected in July, although we
had enough foul weather to ruin the last half of what was lining up to be our best strawberry crop in
years. The wonderfully warm fall was enjoyed by all, but it is sobering to note that between Labor
Day and Thanksgiving we only got a bit under 2” of rain here in Plainfield. Had it been as dry as that
in the spring and summer, we would have lost a lot of crops to the heat and drought. We luckily
dodged another bullet.
We had an anniversary of 50 years of farm ownership and we celebrated with a party for the greater
Edgewater community in September. It was a way of thanking the neighbors, vendors, farming
colleagues, and trades people for their help and forbearance. The staff and family did it up right:
great food, fireworks and music. It was appropriate to mention that our success and longevity has
much to do with all their support. We didn’t just do this on our own.
It is pretty hard to look at the crystal ball and say what we plan to do in the upcoming year. Labor
will continue to be a challenge for us, getting enough bodies to keep the train on the tracks. And
universally the weather is the biggest concern of all family farms of any commodity in New
England. I suspect that our unwritten farm plan will be to stay the course of what we have been
doing the past couple of years- or “no sudden moves”, you might say. Changes in the labor market
and extreme weather will be dealt with as best we can at the point it shows up on the door step.
In the meantime we have the comfort of the holidays to envelope us, and all the grand kids have
duly delivered their wish lists and perused every flyer and catalog that shows up in Grammy Annie’s
kitchen. There is constant traffic at the bird feeders as the snow is now here for a while, at least. I
brought down stairs all the old CD’s of Christmas music and with the tree lit up in the living room
and candles in the windows it feels like a respite...even if we are very busy with both holiday and as
business concerns. We here hope you are all enjoying the early winter and are able to reflect upon
your blessings as we do in this Christmas season.