2012- A Thankful Thursday

The last Thursday of 2012 kinda snuck up on me. (I guess I won’t get into how mid-week holidays totally mess up my schedule and my thinking…)

But, it’s the last “thankful Thursday“of the year. Wow, the end of another year!

The other day, the Boss and I met Neighbor when we were out for a walk.  As we exchanged greetings and he brought us up to speed on the happenings on his side of the lane since our last talk, he said, “this has been a horrible year….the absolute worst…!”  I know some of his struggles, so my heart hurt for him.  However, I also felt a little bit bad…2012 was NOT our worst year…not by a longshot!

Then, I got to thinking about what I suppose was our "worst year ever"…no, maybe it wasn’t that one…maybe it was…yeah, that was pretty bad, but it turned out okay…how ‘bout the year that…?

Suddenly, I realized that even the most awful year had some great moments, too.  The bad times are always countered by some moments of amazing, loving, encouraging, over-the-top experiences that leave me wondering if the bad times were quite as bad as I had originally thought.  For the record...YES, they were. Looking back, we have faced some awful stuff, absolutely NO exaggeration.  But, we have seen REAL miracles!  …and those count for oh, so very much!

In retrospect, 2012 was one for the books. We had the good, the bad and yeah…even the ugly.  We hung in there together and are really looking forward to the challenges of 2013.

The year started with lambing (as it always does). We had an amazingly successful lambing season, although we DID have losses (awful, painful losses), the harvest was incredibly plentiful AND it is delicious.

Cabbage looper damage
Can you say EWWW...YUCK!?

The spring brought some unexpectedly cold weather that caused some serious garden losses.  The weather also set us up for some frustrating pest control battles later in the season.

We experienced our first (and hopefully ONLY) el Derecho during late June.  But, we got through with minimal damage, despite a FIVE day power outage.

You know, we had actually forgotten about the Derecho until we were working on our garden/farm plan for 2013.  None of our planting dates for the latter part of the summer lined up.  WHAT HAPPENED? The Boss wondered. I checked the calendar.  There in big, bold letters was POWER OUTAGE…DERECHO. How could we have forgotten THAT experience?

We had crop failures. We had some amazing successes.  We experienced losses that made us (me) cry. Then there were positive things that astonished us. There were unexpected expenses, but we had the income to cover them. We battled for mastery of the hoophouse for months and finally won the "battle of the whistlepig". We made a lot of new friends.  We lost some folks from our lives. The cycle of life continues as we dance the dance, hoping to appreciate the UPS and the DOWNS.

The Market was astonishing in 2012.  Not only did the Market as a whole record sales topping anything in its 19 year history, but we set a personal record as well.  This amazes us.  While we work hard sometimes (REALLY hard), since we are self-employed we can set the pace.  We truly love what we do AND those folks whose food needs we attempt to fill.  This is truly a labor of love, and being able to make a living at it only makes it so much better.  Did I mention that our awesome customers really make our day?

Winter Sales continue to amaze us.  We never would have thought all those years ago that it was even possible to grow stuff in the Wintertime.  Now we know, it IS possible, it tastes great…and we will NEVER be able to produce enough for our wonderful customer-friends.

Lettuce seedlings
in the greenhouse in December

2012 granted us experiences of every type at some point.

        When all is said and done we’re thankful for all of them!