the Crossroads Companion

Dirt-Washed Jeans Fashion fads crack me up. I now love to wear what we used to call Mom jeans when I was a teenager. My teen now wears the same style of corduroy pants I wore in high school. Meanwhile, my middle daughter really wants to find a [...]

Farm Family About a year ago, our 9-member, all-woman pack line volunteers started a book club. The boss doesn’t always get included in the social going ons of the farm, so I was tickled when I got invited to be a part of it! Over the last [...]

Where’s the Implement? The film, “My Old Ass” is a lovely film about growing up, living in the moment, the power of love and the passage of time. I passed part of the gloomy Saturday afternoon watching this film. I would [...]

The Chip Trio: Barn Kittens! Last Wednesday morning, a fellow farmer posted a picture of 2 adorable kittens she’d lived trapped and asked if any other farmers would be interested in rehoming them. Without much thought, propelled by my [...]

Squirrel Belly The high winds of last week denuded the colorful trees in just a couple of days. That, coupled with daylight savings, has made it feel almost instantly hibernate-y out there. Everything is brown, tawny, straw-colored. Like the [...]

Happy Accident At the farm we raise raise hogs for employees and family. This year I have joked that the pigs are of a cursed season. Usually we raise 4 hogs. This year, the day the hogs were delivered was the day of the Mt. Horeb school [...]

The Sour Patch Time We have down-shifted into the fall shares, where much of the food you receive has already been harvested. We still have to wash and pack it, but the hardest of the work has been done already.  We still have root crops in the [...]

The Generosity – Hurricane Help  Upon returning from wholesale delivery and site sweeps for CSA bins last Thursday, Seth Jake pronounced to Matt (our pack shed manager), “You are unloading this truck!”  Matt looked at me [...]

The Goldilocks Time  These dry, sunny, cooler days have been absolutely phenomenal. Words can’t describe, really, how amazing it is to work outside when it’s cool in the mornings and delightful by the afternoons. Everyone in [...]

Green Spotted Potatoes?  Hello folks! Well the sun and wind has finally done its thing, and we are back to harvesting potatoes again. Woohoo! Our potato yields this year aren’t great. Remember all that rain we had early on in the season? [...]

Pneumonia and Potatoes I have been procrastinating writing this newsletter, because there isn’t much creativity happening for me. My mind is completely preoccupied with pneumonia and potatoes. With all the back to school business, I [...]

Time with My Mind When I was young, I had long thick blonde hair. In high school teachers would ask me if I dyed it. I was very offended, as I have always been more of an au natural kinda person. I loved having long hair and I remember saying [...]

The Yellow Time of Coasting The farm is like a quilt that we stitch together and unstitch season by season. Crop rotations mean that the patterns change every season. Each year the weather is different, but there is always weather. Each year [...]

Heirlooms and Pistachio Milk Recently I enjoyed a celebratory meal at Mint Mark in Madison. A menu item really piqued my curiosity – heirloom tomatoes with pistachio milk. I couldn’t resist. What came out to the table was a shallow [...]

The End of the Stratford Court Era! For 18 years, Jim and Gayle have opened their home on Stratford Court as a pickup site for our Middleton members. They have done so graciously and have always helped us out so much. (It helps that they are [...]

Learning Spanish for the Farm My goal is to farm for at least another 10 years – perhaps more if my body will allow me to do so. I have no idea how much things will change in another 10 years, but I know that in the twenty we have farmed [...]

Orange Peels This time of year, field demands on Michael and myself lessen and streamline. We find ourselves shoulder to shoulder with our field crew much more now. I have been delighted by some of the conversations this lovely crew invites me [...]

The Reparations Check Debacle at BMO Harris Bank According to Madison Magazine (in their July 3, 2024 article entitled Black Farmer in Madison are Growing Their Legacy), “Black farmers make up only 1.2% of the 3.4 million producers in the [...]

The Water Drains East Here In my front yard, there no longer remains any evidence that it rained and rained and rained for the early part of this season.  If you have a yard, probably you are seeing the same thing. The heavy rains and constant [...]

Our Lives Article Featuring Farmer Cassie:  In March of 2024, I was asked to write an article for Our Lives magazine, Madison’s LQBTQ+ magazine. They wanted to know about my experience as a farmer coming out and about how our farm has [...]

Impacts of SO MUCH Rain We are so touched by all of the folks who have checked in with us to make sure we are fairing okay with all of this rain! Thank you. So what are the impacts of all this rain? Short answer – Too much rain really [...]

Loving the Little Things Farming has its stresses, for sure. Undoubtedly you will learn about many of them as we move together through the season. As farmers, we are really good at talking about what’s stressful. There’s too much [...]

Wishing for More Stomachs One of the amazing things about being a farmer is having year round access to the food we grow and feeding ourselves locally every month of the year. While this is awesome to be able to do, it does mean that for the [...]

Vote Crossroads Best of Madison 2024 by June 30th! We are very honored this season to have made the final round of the Best of Madison for a CSA (veggie share) farm. Would you be willing to take a moment to vote for us? (Instructions below) It [...]

2024 Reparations Recipient – Farmher Greens Dear Members, This year’s reparations farm recipient is FarmHer Greens in Madison, Wisconsin. FarmHer Greens was founded by Kim Fruin, and she has been growing produce at Troy Farm [...]

Air Traffic Control Starting in March, I begin seeding plants and tending plants in the greenhouse. During March and April, I spend long, quiet hours, carefully seeding the baby plants that will eventually nourish all of you. It is repetitive [...]

The June Explosion  The seasonal change that is June never ceases to amaze me. This will be our 20th season here at Crossroads, and this change never fails to astound. When we slowly begin the season’s work in early March, seeding flats of [...]

I always find it a wild cosmic coincidence that Michael and my birthdays’ perfectly bookend the veggie share season. Our last fall share goes out tomorrow, the 13th. Michael will celebrate his birthday on the 16th. The quiet, chill office [...]

Frito, Farm Cat in Training Currently Frito is splayed out on my desk in front of the computer screen. Most days now, she either lays in front of my screen or sits behind me on my desk chair. (See farm’s latest Instagram/Facebook post for [...]

A Christmas Tree, Brussels Sprouts and a Chainsaw Fifteen years ago, Michael and I planted a hedgerow of trees along the west side of our fields at the farm on J to give us some visual and audio protection from the traffic along Highway P.  We [...]