A Long Time Ago and Not So Long Ago

On December 12, 2005, we embarked upon providing customers (and potential customers) with an online newsletter that had a bit more than basic logistical content.  The next installment (February/March) went even further towards providing a bit more content as a supplement to the normal farm news.  The monthly (ish) newsletter continued to morph until it reached the format found in our last issue for Septober of 2009.

 Above: the first picture we took of our farm.

There was a bit of a transition as we started using this blog a bit more in 2009 (the blog officially 'started' in December of 2008).  And then we moved to the current day blog in combination with weekly (and then every other week) emails prior to deliveries.  

In a fit of nostalgia, I took some time to view a few of the old newsletters and some of the oldest blog posts and it helped to put some things in to perspective for me.  And, I wondered if it might do the same for others who read the blog.

Our Goal Was Eight Shares

In 2005, the year we inaugurated out CSA share program, our goal was to have a subscription number in the single digits.  We planned on most of our sales coming from three or four farmers' markets per week.  We were serious about thinking it all through and we DID create a business plan before we really got going:

-          Start w/ 8-10 members in year 1, grow to 15 in year 2, 30 in year 3 and plateau around 40 members.

And there you have it, straight from our March 1, 2005 Business Plan for the Genuine Faux Farm.

Well, you know what they say about the "best-laid plans" don't you?  

What got me started on this was a little file cleaning on the computer and I ran into that newsletter I linked at the top of this post - the one dated Dec 2005/Jan 2006.  It was in that newsletter that we summarized our first full season as the Genuine Faux Farm:

Our first success for the season had to be the wonderful response to our endeavors. We set a goal for eight subscribers in 2005 and were able to sign up twenty subscribers instead. We were pleased to get such a positive response, but nervous about being able to deliver a good season of produce as we promised. We feel we were also successful in anticipating how much of various crops we needed to plant in order to meet the demand. We underestimated a little on early cold crops, and overestimated a little on the bean crop in late August/early September. But, it seems that we were most successful in providing a diverse offering on a weekly basis. Things started slowly with a small group of vegetables, but rapidly improved and stayed diverse until the last delivery.

Yes, that was my voice.  In many ways, it is not so different from today's voice.  In other ways, there is farm lifetime's worth of learning and experience creating a gulf between then and now.

Always Seeking a Way Forward

Even in this old 2005/2006 newsletter, there are a host of ideas about how to proceed from the place we found ourselves in after a full season of Genuine Faux Farming.  There was to be an Herb Share that no one wanted and we implemented a Referral Program for which there were no takers.  And, we were introduced to the reality that at least half of our subscribers from year to year were unlikely to return.

But, it was always the case that we dreamed of a way forward - and that dream provided us with a map as we navigated the day to day operations of our farm.

While we have never fully realized the dream we have had for our farm, we still hold that vision in front of us and it still guides us.  While the landscape around us has changed and some of the paths were blocked, we can find elements of that dream that are realized here.  We still hold out hope that our dreams are attainable.

But, even better, our dreams continue to change.  They have changed as our experiences and our knowledge grew.  Perhaps our dreams are better than they were because they, too, have benefited from our attentions.

Here's to a journey towards a worthy future that comes from seeking our way forward a long time ago...

and not so long ago.