Circle M Farm

Yuck! What a dismal ending to the growing year. We’ve spent this week slogging through some very messy fields to bring in the last of the crops. You always wish your final days in the garden could be balmy and warm, but they rarely are. You imagine yourself triumphantly plucking great beautiful brightly colored beets like jewels out of the black dirt, but you generally get to bring in some cold muddy lumps that only reveal their beauty with a firm scrubbing. The great thing about a rainy cold fall is that it makes you wish for snow! And that is just where our thoughts are turning. How much fun would it be to cook up a hearty Potato Leek Soup with Pumpkin Pie for dessert while watching clean white snow cover up the mucky driveway? I guess there will be plenty of time for that sort of fun soon. Here’s what else is in your final box: continued »

I had the great privilege this weekend of seeing Wendell Berry read and speak at the Overture Center. One of my absolutely favorite and most important authors, Berry was invited to Madison by the Wisconsin Book Festival and the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He read a short story from one of his collections, and then answered questions from the audience. I’m seldom tempted to take notes these days, but I certainly wish I had brought a pen to the event. The story Berry read, “Making It Home,” brought me to tears years ago when I first read it in my own bed, and again when Berry read it aloud Sunday night. But the biggest impact of the evening for me, the thing that kept me up for a while that night when I got home, was a rather rambling statement he made in response to a question I have no recollection of. I don’t even know the exact statement, but there was some talk about a local economy, about community and about farming. And Berry said something about the community that happens when farmers and customers in a local setting realize they are interdependent. continued »

Such a bittersweet week in the gardens as we say goodbye to most of the plants in anticipation of tonight’s frost. I felt like the bunny in “Goodnight Moon” as I went row-by-row touching the plants for the last time while harvesting the final fruits. “Goodbye eggplant. Goodbye peppers. Goodbye squash. Thank you all very very much and goodbye.” Soon we will actually be putting the garden to bed for winter as we mulch perennials and clear off debris. continued »