Boxes

I have never been one to do well in confined spaces. I have also been the individual that stands out and not necessarily for all the great reasons.

I have learned to speak up when things are not right or when I have something valuable to add to the conversation. I have also learned to not say anything if it’s just because I want to be heard. I am also the person who will start the conversation with a stranger when all the while it took every ounce of courage to speak.

I tend to take this same approach with our farm adventures. I don’t stick within the confines of a box. My husband Ryan and I are partners in crime. But… not going to lie here.. sometimes I go rogue. I will give you an example. Our market garden has had some challenges this season and not having certain vegetables on our table or in our CSA shares drives me bonkers. We work so unbelievably hard to have a successful year and we are jumping hurdles left and right. Well.. I went rogue and planted extra zucchini plants in a completely different area of the property thinking Ryan will never know… well.. later he bounced the idea of planting melons, pumpkins and sunflowers in that very area.. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I went rogue so just went with it.

Well fast forward 55 days later we have zucchini and watermelon just growing away all while the other zucchini plot is starting to come back strong. Ryan comes up to me and says man that watermelon plant looks like a zucchini plant.. I said yeah… yeah it does. He put his hand up in the air motioning for a high-five because we had zucchini for our CSA members due to me going rogue. Sometimes my crazy works out especially when I have someone who understands it.

It’s those boxes that trip me up though. I do however realize I need some curbs otherwise my chaos starts to overflow and I run out of cups to fill. I have also found the more stress I have the less control I have over my urges to control my not so thought out ideas.

This farm we are building is completely outside of the box. We were not given instructions by generations before us. We are the first generation..,it is just us navigating through what works and some of our ideas are downright unheard of but it works for us. The mountain of unfinished projects are constantly on replay in my mind along with the what ifs. We are not your typical farm or your typical farmers. I think sometimes that is our downfall but most times I think that is our greatest asset because we don’t get stuck in those boxes.

This is another reason we decided to bring freeze dried candy to our farm table. We kept noticing the lack of young people at our markets and needed something on our table that would get the discussion going with kids coming to our table and maybe just maybe they will start asking about us and our farm and who knows maybe even grab a vegetable off the table♥️.

I recently had an experience at a market that gave me an ah-ha moment. We have a couple of markets right after work hours and Ryan and I have discovered that dividing and conquering allows us to be two places at once. As I pulled up to our market I see a young man waiting for me to get setup, he loves the freeze dried candy! So.. I struck him a deal.. I told him if he helped me setup I would pay him in freeze dried candy. He of course took the deal. He gave me full effort and we talked about school and what he has been up to all summer. He completed his task and picked his candy out. I then heard him call his mother to tell her how he earned a bag of freeze dried candy. He later made his way back to the table and bought cucumbers. I realized that I needed to have an open seat at our farm table that everyone can sit comfortably in and encourage outside the box thinking of all ages.

Moral of the story… Be different.. think different..Have the courage to speak up when necessary and listen in those moments when others are meant to shine. ♥️✌🏼-Jamie