week 20: let's be real

this week on the little dream farm

Let’s be real and get into the real life nitty gritty stuff and then we’ll finish off on a high note, because thankfully there’s lots of those happening around the farm at the moment!

If you thought I was going to dive into growing cut flowers—from seed, at scale—for the very first time and there not be any meltdowns, I’m sorry to tell you but you had me pegged wrong!

Saturday was a long day of running drip irrigation, having the cows delivered, trying to fix a few odds and ends things around the farm, and needing to run a few errands.

I came home and in the pouring rain needed to move all the sopping wet seed trays on the patio, first by draining the poor waterlogged seedlings, and then nestling them all under the front porch for the evening while we’re expected to get more rain.

And about the seedlings. This past week many of them took a turn for the worse. It was a bad combination of them needing to be potted up but me holding off since they’re pegged to go into the ground this weekend (likely as you’re reading this, to be exact), needing to be fertilized, having to come inside back under artificial light for two days because we had temps in the 20’s one of the nights I was away this past week, a few seedlings that died off from a night in the low 40s, and then me being away for four days and Chris having to take on the load of balancing all those factors I just mentioned while also prepping for a huge event he’s running in NYC next week for work and then all the regular farm duties, but solo.

It was a lot. We know it’s a lot. We (or in fairness I should say I because Chris has better control of himself not taking on too much at once) know we’re juggling a lot and that both our travel schedules was going to impact making it tougher on us to try and take on the Cut Flower Patch with all the other projects we have in the works.

Perhaps we could go slower, or do less, or focus on doing fewer things well, and maybe that’s one of the lessons that’ll come out in the wash when this growing season is all said and done. But in the meantime, I was standing outside under the porch in front of all these soggy, struggling seedlings, on the verge of tears and feeling really ready to throw in the towel.

Let’s not waste too many words talking about that, because really I think the mini meltdown is less important than the takeaways, which Chris and I sat and talked about before I sat down to write this Note. I think is worth sharing some of them as a reminder for all of us, or in case you’re also in a season of stretching yourself and its got you standing there with the tears welling in your eyes and feeling like you want to take your toys and go home.

Trying anything new can be hard. Doing it at a bigger scale than you’re ready for is hard…some might even say unwise. But sometimes some of the very best lessons in life come from diving in…straight into the deep end, and learning as you go.

Earlier this week I read a quote that said,

“Action cures uncertainty. You can get stuck in a spiral of uncertainty that causes inaction which causes more uncertainty. Action yields information, and information reduces uncertainty. If you’re stuck in uncertainty, just do something.”

It resonated with me because it’s how most of the projects feel on the farm—they’re initially overwhelming because there’s a learning curve, but when you just get started, all that “what if” noise gets drown out by the problem solving of figuring out how to get the thing done.

So, instead of me standing outside crying over dying seedlings and how we’d planned to start with a smaller patch but ended up with a larger space (and then decided to see if we could make it work instead of keeping things small like we knew we should)…I came inside, grabbed my best friend and teammate, and we sat and talked it out to keep me from going off the deep end.

This is definitely stretching us both—not necessarily in a bad way—but certainly we’re feeling the growing pains of growing living things at scale. It’s been a lot of hard work, and while we’ve thankfully kept the arguments to a minimum (bless Chris, that man has the patience of a saint for all my crazy) it hasn’t all been a smooth ride, either.

I have to laugh when we get comments that say, “This flower patch is going to be so beautiful!” It might! is what I always laugh to myself, and not because I’m too hard on myself or lack the confidence…but there are so many more hurdles to get to flowers. From getting them into the ground and getting the irrigation system right, to preventing pests, fertilizing, hoping the growing conditions this season work in our favor, and then all the other random things we can’t predict but can bet on having to deal with at some point.

Another takeaway for me from today’s frustrations is that staying in problem-solving mode and staying solution-oriented is one of the most critical parts of the journey…especially when things get hard. Thankfully Chris is a lot better at this in general, so while I’m usually standing around whining and stomping my feet like a child (yes, sometimes even literally), he’s level headed and bringing me back into reality by saying, “Ok, Sarah, are you done with all that now? Can we please start talking about the solution?”

What we’ll end up doing with some of the dying off seedlings is simply direct sow seeds into the ground and I’ll start a few more trays indoors to try and make up for some of the losses with different flowers as we won’t be able to replace what isn’t surviving as it’s now too late in the season for those to have time to flower.

Anyway, hopefully the insight into both the highs and lows of striving towards something new can be that good reminder for us that it’s so easy to get caught up in our heads when things are feeling hard. It’s also too easy to watch others and mistakenly think it’s all easy…all too often that’s the result of a ton of hard work and struggle behind the scenes that just happens to make it look as if it were so easy.

Rest assured I’m not giving up on flowers but I also full-well expect there to be more mini meltdowns along the path…the goal being on keeping those to a minimum, mainly for Chris’ sake, haha!

Now let’s get onto the high notes because I told myself I’d keep this Note short and sweet this week since there’s much to be done! There are thankfully more high notes to mention but for time’s sake let’s get after the two best ones:

Let me tell you...this was pure joy!

We took Molly-Max and Dominic for a walk around the farm with their harnesses and leads and boy did they enjoy it! They were so happy to browse lots of lush green grass, move freely in any direction they wanted to lead us, and spend time hanging out with us together. I think they must love to hear us laugh, because the harder we laughed the faster they moved! Molly-Max impressed the heck out of us with how good he looks, how well he moves, and how far he’s come. We’re planning to do this more regularly with them since they seemed to enjoy it so much and we couldn’t get enough of how much it made us smile!

We have 11 LDF cows this year - including a mama and her baby boy!

The farmer, his name is John, dropped the cows off on Saturday afternoon after running fences here on the farm. He and his brother fenced the entire east side of the farm and then created three separate grazing paddocks within that east side so that they can graze the grass a little better than last year—it’s better both for the cows and for the pastures. Once he gets a feel for his plan and we go over all of it together, I’ll plan to share this year’s grazing plan and pasture maintenance with you all so you can learn all about the ways we work with the farmer to maintain the pastures and make sure the cattle get the best grazing, too!

And that about does it for this week’s Farm Note…this 20th week of the year. If you are in the midst of something new or there’s a stirring in your heart to try something you’ve never done or dive into something you’ve been thinking about, I hope this gives you the push to keep going, or to begin.

We’re so capable of doing hard things…we’re built to be able to shoulder a heavy load, and we can take on a lot, be overwhelmed by it all, and still give ourselves grace in the process. It won’t always be rainbows and sunshine, as has been the case for us a handful of times along this path so far, but in this case we’re at least relatively likely to get some flowers out of it!

As always, we LOVE to hear from you, so feel free to share how your week went, what you’ve been up to, your thoughts on what I discussed above, questions you might have, or any general comments about life stuff, trying new things, or something you’re currently working on or striving towards…all of it welcome!