Weekly Update: Oct 5 - another week of firsts
What an insane week.
Both exhaustion and pressure set in. By Friday night, after three farm-to-table dinners in the past four nights, I just didn’t think I could do it, didn’t know how we would be able to get through our first busy October weekend.
Everyone warned us about how busy this month would be. How could we handle being super busy during a pandemic? To keep lines shorter and handles the crowds, basically doubled our staff to more than 40, doubled registers to 10 and spread out activities and food to prevent clusters of folks in any one spot.
Saturday morning, people started arriving right at 9am, and stayed spread out until we closed at 6pm. Many people brought their own picnic blankets and made a spot for themselves on the lawn - then went looking for the perfect pumpkin, took a hayride, saw the animals, ate a little food. Sunday even more people arrived right at 9am. It was absolutely amazing. It was sunny, everyone was happy, and we survived how busy it was. So many people told us they felt safe, and that they had fun.
Earlier in the week, KPTV came to the farm and recorded three live segments from the farm on their morning show, “On the Go with Joe”. Joe and Michael, the cameraman, were super nice and helped us through the whole thing. For the record, they only had one mic, which is why Jim was quiet and I did all the talking.
Odessa, Elmo, Tiny Dancer and Maggie!
Look how tall our corn grew!!!
Joe kept us all laughing. I think he secretly LOVES all our animals.
We couldn’t believe how many people, who had never been to the farm, came out after seeing us on TV. Some folks started coming less than an hour after the segments aired, in hopes of seeing the mini-horses (Tiny Dancer shown on the top of this page, and her brother Elmo, were here during filming, and will hang out on Oct 24 for Unicorn day). Here are the three clips:
Market
Maze
Animals
Our farm at it’s peak yesterday.
My favorite part, of the farm being open to the public, is looking out and seeing so many people having a good time. We’ve gotten to meet so many great people. Especially right now, while everyone is so isolated, it feels really special to be able to have a place where people can come and be social and safe.
The biggest complaint we got opening weekend: No Dogs Allowed. We got angry calls, emails, messages and social media posts.
A few people told us they would never return, because they couldn’t come with their dogs. We are new not just to farming, but also to retail. Neither Jim or I have had retail experience. We are super sensitive when we hear someone hasn’t had a good experience. It’s hard to think this will get easier. So when people would write us this weekend vowing that they would never return, and that they were going to tell all their friends not to come to the farm because we don’t allow dogs, it hurts.
That said, I understand. Coming to the farm for a lot of folks is about a tradition. And if your tradition included your dog, I can see how you would be disappointed.
We talked and debated for months about how to handle dogs before establishing a no dogs policy. We also talked to other farmers on the island. In fact just last month, a customer at one of the other farms was bit by someone’s dog. This was definitely one of the considerations. But there are plenty of other reasons:
• Health Safety - the Department of Agriculture has strict rules, and does not allow dogs in a market unless they are service dogs (this does not include support dogs). Nor are dogs allowed in fields where we grow food.
• It’s hard to get people to keep their dogs in designated areas.
• Dogs can carry certain bugs that are dangerous to our farm animals.
• As we have unfortunately witnessed at the farm, in the past, even friendly family dogs can get excited by seeing chickens and kill them.
• Some people are allergic to or afraid of dogs.
The weekend ended on a high note. Today is our friend’s 50th bday. So last night we celebrated with some delicious food by Christian Ephrem (one of our farm to plate chefs). After some food, we walked through the maze in the dark, with our kids jumping out trying to scare us, coyotes howling and the giant moon lighting our way. It was a great way to end a busy week. More photos below.
xo
Jim and Peter test the cutout. Thanks to Nick Stokes for creating the amazing illustration!
Saturday, lots of folks came to walk or take a hayride into the pumpkin fields. In the background check out the maze entrance we painted last weekend — it was so fun to create.
The newest addition to our tractor team. Erin took families by hayride to the pumpkin patches non-stop Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Our daughter at the info booth.
Jason stocking the shelves. Michael had to go to the fields numerous times, this weekend, for sweet corn and pie pumpkins to keep up.
One of our fields of sweet yellow corn is so good, I couldn’t stop eating it raw. A new first for me. I don’t think we picked our remaining bi-color field in time. It didn’t taste as good, and will be used as food for our animals. (Michael is in the background picking.)
The moon coming up over the corn maze.