SANDHILL FARM -- 2010 YEAR END SUMMARY
By stan
Early Jan 2011.

Cast of characters: name, age, member since...
Laird, 61, founder
Stan, 64, 1980
Gigi, 50, 1994
Mica (formerly Apple), 37, 2007
Emily, 30, 2009
Joe, 31, 2010
Trish, 29, 2010
Renay (nay nay), 14, since birth, (daughter of Gigi & French)
Emory, 2.8 (son of Joe & Trish), 2010.
Jacob, 29, of neighboring Red Earth Farm, has been spending winters with us

Abbreviations: dr = dancing rabbit ecovillage (now about 50 people)
                         Ref = red earth farm (about 10 folks)
Want more details? Laird & stan continue to blog: access via sandhillfarm.org website.

The year at a glance:

Winter

• We play: ice skate, ski, ultimate frisbee - on one particular day, both hockey and ultimate. We also read and try to relax and recharge (for the year ahead).
• we join our friends, Dan & Cherie, to wassail their apple orchard. We have so much fun that we wassail our fruit trees the next night.
• firewood: apple & jacob generally head up this project. We also cut 2 large white oak trees for saw logs - for our own construction needs. (Otto from east wind comty had been coming the last few winters to help with firewood - this year, we have enough energy/labor on the farm - w/o him.
• We have our annual comty retreat - Joe, Trish, & Emory join us for the retreat.
• Maple season - the worst yield EVER: in 2009 - we made 109 quarts, this year - 10! We try to appreciate the vagaries/mysteries of nature... and we do celebrate the season with an annual maple open house
• Green house: this is the first winter we have greens through the winter for salads.
• Apple and Emily do the fermentation workshop with Sandor Katz at the comty Mercantile and others of us go for the social times with Sandor.
• Stan goes to an Organic Beekeeping Conference in AZ and combines it with visiting long time friend, Sandy, who is dying of cancer.
• Gigi turns 50; to celebrate, she and Linda, a friend from Oregon, meet for a trip in New Mexico and have a great reunion.
• Tragedy: our golden retriever dog, "goldie", chases a vehicle, he cuts it too close, is run over, and dies.

 

Spring

• Intern season begins with the arrival of Owen on 3/23, Sara and Kurt, the other interns, come later.
• RAIN! RAIN! RAIN! Will it ever stop??
• The green house is bursting with seedlings: it's so great to have a place for the seedlings that is sunny and protected - from all this rain.
• Bees: as a result of stan's excitement from attending beekeeping conference - apple constructs 2 top bar hives & we get packages of bees for both: they are doing very well. apple & stan give a workshop on beekeeping at the Milkweed Mercantile at dr; in preparation for the workshop, stan compiles a history of beekeeping at sandhill farm - see our website. Swarming season starts early and it is another very challenging bee/honey season - very little honey for sale.
• Joe, Trish, & Emory officially join Sandhill 6/2/10. yeah!
• We make more raised beds in the gardens: this is the third consecutive year of very wet springs - in these situations, raised beds make so much sense.
• May 8 - we have a lovely annual mayday celebration - although very cold - the coldest ever; that night we have frost!!
• All the rain is good for shitake production - we have enough shitakes to eat, dry, freeze, and sell to folks at dr.
• Stan makes another trip to AZ to be with sandy - she then goes to Hawaii to die - it was a difficult passing for her. I have some of her ashes on my altar.

Summer

• Renay continues her tradition of going to summer camp - caring for & riding horses; now she is finishing her "wrangler in training" - an assistant type of role.
• Rain, rain, rain - it doesn't stop. It's being hard to get garden crops in - and especially hard to get field crops in: the rain washes out the seeds/tiny plants before they get established - we plant some of the sorghum and beans 3 times!! ERGH! We plant the last sorghum on July 17 - is this an exercise in futility?? Can we possibly expect a crop? - what do we have to lose (other than seed)?
• Garden - we have several gardens all around the buildings and they are the cornerstone to our scene here: growing our own food. During his time here, Michael became a mainstay in the garden and he and Gigi managed it together. When he and Kathe left, Emily stepped in and she and Gigi managed the garden scene; in spite of the challenging weather, the gardens were productive and the energy harmonious.
• we continue our tradition of "field tours": we pile on our pickup truck (usually after dinner) and go to see the field crops; since most of us spend the majority of our time on the farm stead and gardens - it's fun to go out and see the rest of our land and crops "out there".
• Kurt fishes in our pond as well as brings us plenty of fish from his family's fishing trip.
• harvest: amazingly, we harvest a LOT of vegetables from our gardens (thank you raised beds!); we eat fresh, sell at farmers market & dr, freeze, dry, and can for the winter. On the other hand, we had our poorest wheat crop ever.
• We continue to grow seeds for sale to SESE (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange), owned/operated by our friends at Acorn com'ty.

Fall

• a glorious fall - we have plenty of sun and it finally dries out - so that we actually have tomatoes, peppers, squash, kitchen beans, etc as well as sorghum. We have lots of help for the sorghum harvest, including labor exchange crews from Acorn and east wind communities.
• Sorghum Harvest Festival draws about 80 folks: lots of fun: field tours, garden & herb garden tours, cider pressing, beeswax candle making, music, hot sorghum syrup on ice cream & biscuits, etc.
• The honey bees finally hit their stride - is it the weather? they seem healthier than in a long time... here's hoping for a great next season
• Apple changes her name to Mica apple wood
• We harvest 5 deer on our land: we field dress, skin, and butcher all of them ourselves - this is our red meat supply for the year. Renay perfects her jerky recipe/process.
• Gigi takes a cheese making workshop at the Mercantile to revive her old routine of making cheese.
• Lots of travel to see friends/family after the harvest: stan to Manitoba, mica and emily to the east coast, Joe, Trish, & Emory to IL and st louis for thanksgiving and xmas, etc.
• 12/30/10 - the low temp is 45 F! the snow melts and the bees are out doing their "cleansing flights" (pooping)

 

The larger picture:

• Chris Roth (editor, Comties Mag), comes to explore membership at Sandhill from March to November; we all decide it is not the best/perfect fit, and he moves to dr.
• Laird continues his work with FIC as well as process facilitation and Stan keeps on with organic inspections. Gigi is a substitute teacher at the local school and Emily continues to work for FIC - wearing various hats.
• Weather is a big factor - the 3rd consecutive year of very wet conditions making it very challenging; "hey, I thought farming was supposed to be fun...."
• Local food: food production has always been a focus here - for ourselves and for sale; now we are focusing more on developing a local food network: farmers market, folks at dr & ref, connections at the university - maybe the local school next? In this vein, Gigi organizes a local fall film series focusing on food issues that includes a local foods dinner with each screening.
• Other activism: we continue to be a part of a local anti CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations - in our case, read hog farms) group - we began monthly potlucks to have social time with each other. Gigi is active in forming a Stream team to monitor local rivers and we continue to be part of a state wide concerned citizens for a healthy agriculture and local control (including lobbying at the state capital, etc).
• Tri community women began a monthly gathering where one of them shares her life story.
• Various folks here are part of the tri communities ultimate frisbee scene several times a week
• Membership: for several years, we have been actively recruiting younger members - to offset our aging population. Now, it is happening: with the arrival of Joe, Trish, & Emory, we have more adult members under 40 than over 50!
• Health: stan has been having digestive issues for more than a year; in the summer, he has a colonoscopy, MRI, and a barium enema (i emailed more detailed info at the time). After all of that, i decide that i am in good health.
• Finances: sometime spring/early summer, we realize that our financial reserves are rapidly shrinking - faster than most of us were aware - what happened? Basically, Laird had a large family inheritance more than a decade ago which he loaned to the com'ty and  was in charge of loaning the money to worthwhile causes - in this case, mostly to Ceilee and Josefa. Then Laird got married and we forged an entirely new membership/financial arrangement between him and the comty - the key factor being that he shares half of his income with sandhill, the other half with his marriage (his wife, Maikwe, lives at dr). Over the last 2 years, Maikwe has been building her house at dr and so needed extra $, which Laird diverted from what he considered his loan to Sandhill to the marriage - EXCEPT that he had already loaned that money previously. No one (including Laird?) realized how much of that money he was double loaning until someone (in this case, Gigi) realized that something was amiss.  By then, there was a lot of cash gone.

Fall out: MAJOR distrust issues: all the way from: you stole our money! to even if you meant well - how could you run this far over?? As you can imagine, we have had lots of meetings to air feelings.
So - where are we now?   There is a wide range of feelings as to our current financial position (how much $ in the bank/stock market constitutes a "financial reserve"?). The deeper issue is how to rebuild trust?
How to keep joy & celebration in all of this? A challenge.

I usually avoid ending on a down note - but I reckon it's all a part of life...

 

Wishing y'all a fruitful 2011!