Hilltop Community Farm

We're excited to be a site host for an Advanced Photovoltaic Training Installation Workshop with the Midwest Renewable Energy Association and Northwind Renewable Energy, LLC, set for July 8 - 11. You can learn details of the training on the MREA website.

What's even more exciting is that we are able to run our farm entirely (we hope) on renewable energy! With the sun in mind, we thought we'd take the time to share perspectives on what it means for us to:

Stewarding Sun and Soil – An overview of systems at play at the dawn of the CSA season...

Wednesday, it was 78.

Thursday noon, when I got to the farm to work, it was 43, though the balance of the day was spent in the mid-30's with wind-driven rain. Friday struggled for 40; morning rime whitened the tree-tops on the ridge, raining down noisily onto mouldering leaves as it melted. Saturday, 74 was achieved by lunch. 

If this is the face of climate change, I tender my resignation as a farmer. We will hope that April was not an augury for the growing season to come.

Last year you would have been getting your second CSA delivery by now; this year you'll be lucky to see your first share by mid-May. Buds on the deciduous trees are just starting to color the ridges around Hilltop, auburn, lime, chartreuse. Last year, full leaf-out was finished two weeks ago.

As producer members of FRESH, we tend to be aware of the role that farmers play at the intersection of ecology and economics. This is often difficult territory to traverse; doing the right thing by the land is usually more labor-intensive and/or costly than the end arounds of conventional agriculture, inevitably making our product more expensive.We are quite used to thinking about our farms wholistically and ecologically; should we not also be thinking ecologically about the larger economy of which our farms are a part of?

It's hard to believe that a year ago today (March 18, 2012) the thermometer topped 81 F...This year, the red wing blackbirds are likely wishing they had access to satellite radar and would have stayed south.

It's a little hard to believe I've been at this 20 years now, but in March of 1993 I sold my first four shares.Actually, my back can believe it. Vegetable farming inevitably involves a lot of bending and lifting, but we've also scaled-down our machinery from two decades ago, sending the old Troy-Built rototiller off to the scrap yard and replacing it with a tiny Mantis.

Greetings and Gleanings from the field and farms of Senegal. Senegal has given me a second chance and I just returned from another training with the Farmer to Farmer Program, this time in the Toubacouta region. I was given a second chance and new perspective on farming, life, and love.

You can also link to my most recent Senegal photo album on our Facebook page.

A Seed Sleep Manifesto...

A farmer friend of ours, Ian, visited us the other day and bestowed a beautiful holiday gift. Tomato seeds! All collected from his farm outside of Verona, WI. Stories and tips were shared, and we exchanged the gesture with a small yellow envelope of faher ozone and alma paprikas, two of our favorite peppers which we've been saving and adapting to our farm for the past 19 years. The story of seed saving and exchange continues, and dreams of orange, yellows, deep red, ripe was planted on the palette of winter white. It's January, a time for nestling under snowy blankets and sleeping the sleep of the seed.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Senegal, Africa to participate in the Farmer to Farmer Program through the National Cooperative Business Association. The following are a series of blog postings I wrote for National Farmers Union, reflecting on my experiences with the program and highlights from my time abroad. 

Part 1: Gleanings and Greetings from Senegal