Annnnd we're back at the Ann Arbor Wednesday market for one more week! Lizz brought the goods and it is a warm day! Head on down! This will be our last Ann Arbor Wednesday market until it starts back up in May. This will also be our final week of markets for the year of 2018! We are taking a vacation! We will be back at Ann Arbor Saturday and Eastern Market January 5th.
But before our hiatus, I want to make sure to tell you, we are doing exciting things here at Lake Divide Farm and there are lots of ways to be a part of it. There are two things I want to be sure you know:

• This is a great time of year to sign-up or renew your farm membership. Find more details here. The basics? Open an account with us, get a bonus, and use your account to purchase produce with us at any of our markets. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask. 
• We are hiring! We have 3 full-time and 3 part-time positions opening up for the 2019 season. You can find details about the jobs on our website here. If you or anyone you know may be interested, please send us an email or pass along the information. 

Now, about our vacation. This vacation is a little more than a state of mind-style of the summer. We won't be going anywhere and we won't be completelyrelieved of duty. but we will have mental space to read all day, go on walks, be mindful in our meal preparation, and indulge in some hygge (pronounced hooga- the Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of coziness with undertones of wellness!) We are going bring a tree in from out side, adorn it with decoration, string excessive lights inside and out, and set some candles ablaze. We will make crock pots full of soup and heat up cider. We will write letters of gratitude- whether they end up delivered or not- to all the people that have supported us and brought joy, and comfort to us over the last year. We will bundle up and venture outside to observe our quiet but not sleeping, colder world. And we will celebrate the returning of the light. 

The shortest day of the year is upon us again; the great dip in the great light. This winter solstice falls on the coming Friday and coincidentally, the full moon will be gathering about that day as well. For us, the darkest night of the year, represents the beginning of the next growing season. From here on out, daylight hours will accumulate with each trip around the sun. Towards the end of January, our plants will begin to pick up the pace again, packing on biomass for our consumption. For now, we will enjoy the full moon and we hope you do too. Thank you so much for all your support this year. We couldn't do what we do without you.Enjoy any time you get to spend with family and friends and let us all head into the new year together with high hopes and bright faces!
To the FUTURE!

Helen writing for the Lake Dividers
Fresh From the Field!

Greens: (Limited)Arugula
Baby Bok Choi
Mustard
Tatsoi
Kale: flat leaf, green curly, and red curly
Herbs: 
Rosemary
Thyme
All manner of deliciousness:
Beets
Cabbage
Celery root- limited
Fennel: Crispy bulbs.
Garlic
Kohlrabi- beautiful meal sized kohlrabi and tender petite 
Onions
Sweet potatoes!
Radishes: Classic, White Daikon, Green Daikon, and Watermelon radish
Rutabaga
Turnips: Purple top and golden roasting turnips
Turnabaga- Turnip-Rutabaga cross! Delicious, sweet and crisp!
​Markets, always rain or shine!NO Wednesday Market this week: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm.

Saturday: Ann Arbor, Chelsea, and Detroit's Eastern Market

The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

The Eastern Market in Detroit is located about a mile northeast of downtown. It covers about 43 acres, bounded by I-75 on the West and Gratiot Avenue on the South. It runs year round from  6am – 4pm

ALERT, ALERT! We will NOT be attending the Ann Arbor Wednesday market this week, but we WILL be at all our regularly scheduled Saturday markets. 
And at these regularly scheduled Saturday markets, in addition to delicious produce, you can find gift cards! They area great way to get friends and family out to the farmers' market and eating fresh. If you have any questions about them, shoot us an email, or better yet, come visit us at market this Saturday. The weather will even grace us with ABOVE FREEZING TEMPERATURES! It may be downright balmy!
That said, it's been another routine winter week at the farm. Harvest, clean and divide produce, go to markets, office work, meetings. It may not sound like the spiciest material to write about, and in fact I am finding it difficult to weave a compelling story about the budget meeting... maybe if I interwove excerpts from the Harvest Log Excel sheet debate?! Now that sounds like entertainment! This is not the flashiest time of year to be a farmer, but this is when all the magic happens. In the winter we make all our plans for the coming season. We do our best to predict income, expenditures, problems of all shapes and colors, and we try to figure out how we should handle each one: when you encounter round purple problems, you push through, but when you find a yellow and white polka dot spherical triangle problem, you buy it a coffee, make friends. As we have.
It is nice that this year, we are rounding the bend on some of the planning work a little earlier than last. A notable improvement in our lives can be observed as a result. 

Until next week!


Jim (+mini additions by Helen) writing for the Lake Dividers
Fresh From the Field!

Greens: (Limited)Arugula
Baby Bok Choi
Mustard
Tatsoi
Kale: flat leaf, green curly, and red curly
Herbs: 
Rosemary
Thyme
All manner of deliciousness:
Beets
Cabbage
Celery root- limited
Fennel: Crispy bulbs.
Garlic
Kohlrabi- beautiful meal sized kohlrabi and tender petite 
Onions
Sweet potatoes!
Radishes: Classic, White Daikon, Green Daikon, and Watermelon radish
Rutabaga
Turnips: Purple top and golden roasting turnips
Turnabaga- Turnip-Rutabaga cross! Delicious, sweet and crisp!
Your balance is: 0Markets, always rain or shine!NO Wednesday Market this week: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm.

Saturday: Ann Arbor, Chelsea, and Detroit's Eastern Market

The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

The Eastern Market in Detroit is located about a mile northeast of downtown. It covers about 43 acres, bounded by I-75 on the West and Gratiot Avenue on the South. It runs year round from  6am – 4pm

Ahoy!!
​Rest. Like long days catch up, short ones do too. Last week in a blur of distress, I expressed the feeling that there would be no relief. Jim assured me we were there, firmly planted in the opportunity to take a breath. I slept a lot and I can I feel it now, the settling of time around me. And with the time afforded to us, what will we do? 
We have created a gift card that can be used just like one of our CSA accounts. Choose any starting balance and get one for your family and friends giving them the gift of good food, friendly faces, and community. We are at the Ann Arbor and Eastern Markets all winter and the Chelsea market through the end of December! Alternatively, gift card holders could wait to use their balances until their favorite farm fresh vegetables arise from the earth! But why wait, I say, you could be missing out on the favorite vegetable you didn't know existed! Pick one up at market starting Saturday!
In the field, our greens, under their mere fabric cover, have survived still! I am blown away by their resilience. Our hoop house greens are behind as expected, which makes me all the more grateful that our field greens stubbornly refuse to die. If all goes well, the hoop greens will step up to shoulder our consumptive needs just in time. And as the field work slows, we populate our winter to do list. We just purchased our ginger and turmeric seed for next year. It was a sad crop loss this year, but one that we are not prepared to repeat. We are signing up for our seed CSA! Just like you (may) sign up to be a member of our farm, we sign up to be a member of a seed farm. It is a great way to let farms feel your support throughout the year. These steps are just the beginning of looking forward into the details of next year. We are gathering our grit and preparing to populate our winter to do list. This winter, one of the top items will be resting and finding some enjoyment in the world!
And as we look forward, we must also look back. We are lucky enough to have google's updated map from this year. It is so cool to actually be able to look at some of what we did. In the picture below, you will see ground prepared for fall crops, spring crops going to seed, acres of cover crop establishing, fields of actively harvested crops, and even a truck in the field. Someone is out there, putting their shoulder into it. The shapes of the fields, while not as squared up as in my drawings, look remarkably similar to what I have on paper. Last spring, I tromped around the field with Lizz, Brianna, and Tony alike, trying to mete out some sense of the land. Now there it lies, one more thing we don't have to do next year. It will be nice to use this a reference when planning for the coming season.
This is just one more way our farm is building context, making our path more clear. It is wonderful to take a moment to appreciate how far we have come in these past two years. Our farm has grown and is growing still with increasing momentum. Jim had an interesting conversation with a market friend about how ideas become reality. The short version is this: Where before, it felt like we had to manifest all ideas through shear will, there is less resistance. Now we ease the path, like sweepers in curling. It is a relief to transition into support staff to our dream as it takes on a life of its own.


Helen writing for the Lake Dividers

Fresh From the Field!

Greens:Arugula
Baby Bok Choi
Head lettuce!
Mizuna
Mustard
Tatsoi
Kale: flat leaf, green curly, and red curly
Herbs: 
Rosemary
Sage
Thyme
All manner of deliciousness:
Beets
Cabbage
Celery root- small but fantastic!
Fennel: Crispy bulbs.
Garlic
Kohlrabi- beautiful meal sized kohlrabi and tender petite 
Onions
Potatoes limited
Sweet potatoes!
Radishes: Classic, White Daikon, Green Daikon, and Watermelonradish
Rutabaga
Turnips: Purple top and golden roasting turnips
Turnabaga- Turnip-Rutabaga cross! Delicious, sweet and crisp!
Markets, always rain or shine!Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm.

Saturday: Ann Arbor, Chelsea, and Detroit's Eastern Market

The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

The Eastern Market in Detroit is located about a mile northeast of downtown. It covers about 43 acres, bounded by I-75 on the West and Gratiot Avenue on the South. It runs year round from  6am – 4pm