Heart Work in a Box: CSA 2021, Week #1

Welcome either back, or to, Crossroads Community Farm! We are so happy to be feeding you this season.

The first box of the season is a beauty, and we are proud to share it with you.  The vegetables are a result of so many different people’s hard work. Our early season crew, including Mike, myself, Jared, Seth, and Frank (all returning crew members who are AMAZING!) did the seeding, transplanting, row-covering, and cultivation of these crops. Mike’s tireless irrigation runs during this exceptionally dry spring have kept everything alive and thriving. And the hard work of our main crew (those folks listed above as well as Dustin, Bri, Sam, Caroline, Kiva, and Claire) harvested and washed it all.

I don’t usually start the season off bragging about a box, but I am particularly proud of this one.

I’m not proud of it because the box itself is somehow exceptional. No, I am proud of it because it meets our normal quality, and this season that makes me proud.

You see, Mike and I, your farmers, used to run this farm together as a married couple. Late last summer we made the hard, sad, but amicable decision to divorce. This farm, just like the three kids we share, is something we created together. We decided that we would approach our farm as our first child, something we would continue to care for together.

I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s not easy to farm with your partner.

I’ll also be the first to tell you that it’s not easy to farm with your ex-partner either.

But Mike and I are not shy of things that aren’t easy. We have always worked hard and well together, and complimented each other as farmers. Together we have created something we are very proud of and we are working to keep our farm business not only going, but thriving.

When I look at this first box of vegetables, I see the physical outcome of two people who have done so much hard work with their hearts and minds. It represents two people who still love one another and have committed to doing something together, even when sometimes it’s hard on the heart.

Needless to say, with our hearts and minds focused with this new work of figuring out how to manage the farm as ex-partners, having an utterly normal, perfectly up to quality box, feels like an enormous success. I’m so very proud of this new us.

As always, thank you for your support of our farm.

Sincerely,
Farmer Cassie