2025: End of an Era
Welcome 2026! Good bye 2025!
It’s been a while since I have posted an update because life has been FULL and I am only now getting some breathing room to reflect on 2025 and orient to 2026!
We welcomed our third child, Wallace Adler, onto the farm on September 14th and it has felt like a postpartum whirlwind since then. Wallace was born after a night labor here at the farm at 9:42am on Sunday, September 14th, 2025 amongst fog, crickets and love. Tillee brought him up to my chest after his emergence and was present for most of my labor which she said she felt it was intense and love-filled. While I did not expect or plan it, I am in love with her being able to experience the birth of her brother at home. What a teaching experience for her! Wallace was over a pound bigger than both girls and 2 inches longer than Tillee and 3 inches longer than Dortheea! I certainly felt that he was bigger in my body before he was born but since we don’t do ultrasounds or much testing, it was just an intuition that he was a big boy.
It just now feels like things are settling down: Travis is back at work after 12 weeks off and I am home on the farm full time with all 3 children, each at very different developmental stages. And after a challenging December with sickness and holiday busy-ness, both Travis and I lost our last grandparent: both of our maternal grandmothers (his on the same day of my grandmothers memorial service!) and there’s been grief here too that we are moving through.
So here I am with a bit more space to formally announce that for the 1st time in 14 years, I am not going to CSA farm in 2026. It feels bittersweet and a bit unmooring but also freeing to choose to let this part of our farm go for now. I cannot fathom managing employees and a CSA while also caring for our three children, home and general farm upkeep. It is a lot- more on this below!
I am so grateful for all the CSA members that have graced our farm with their support for the last 12 years- thank you all! It has been an utter and delicious joy to be your CSA farmer! It definitely feels like an end of an era; one that I have willingly and consciously chosen but an end nonetheless.
I still plan to grow plenty of food for our family, worker shares and for our beloved restaurant partners and see below on how you can continue to support and be a part of our farm community.
2025 Farm Reflection
2025 really felt like the whole year was devoted to growing and birthing Wallace which aligned perfectly with the seasons 😊 My pregnancy with him aligned with the start of the year and the year ended exactly with the completion of my childbearing year. I found our Land mirroring me and me mirroring the Land in so many ways during my pregnancy with Wallace. Just the seasonality alone of my pregnancy was astounding and felt so aligned: from conceiving in the depths of winter around the 2024 solstice, to the spring time awakening and my emergence from 1st trimester fatigue and nausea, to the higher energy and capacity of the 2nd trimester with peak planting time in late spring/early summer, to the ripening of my belly, the slowing down capacity of my body and the fruits of the summer in the 3rd trimester.
We had several first big harvests of some very special crops last year that we have never had before: over 400 lbs of peaches (which was a lifelong dream for me since childhood!), over 300 lbs of plums, a few bunches of Concord grapes after years of them being eaten to the ground over winter, 1st goose eggs on my birthday, 1st duck eggs on our 11th wedding anniversary (2 days before Wallace was born!), our first hardy kiwi blossoms and after 4 years of waiting: our first rack of bananas in the greenhouse! I felt so in tune with our Land and after 8 years of living in relationship and growing our food here, I probably am more “made of this” Land than any other!
The reality of being pregnant, caring for a 2 and 6 year old and managing an employee and CSA was A LOT. Each pregnancy has felt like a lot but wow has my capacity had to increase each time beyond what I thought possible. So in 2025, I was tired All. The. Time. I napped nearly every day of my pregnancy with Wallace. I was pleasantly surprised 3-4 weeks postpartum after I recovered from childbirth that I didn’t need to nap anymore! I had forgotten how much energy I normally have and I remembered again how much energy and focus (mentally and physically and spiritually) really goes into growing a baby. Phew it’s big, even though it’s really the most mundane things that billions of women have done.
My apprentice, Calvin, was able to do the majority of the farm labor and after Wallace was born, Calvin ran the CSA almost all on his own! I just supported him as able and maintained computer related work and planning. We planned for that, I did my best to prepare him and he did great! Calvin is now graduated and hopefully moving to a managerial position on a new farm! THANK YOU CALVIN!
There are more stats I could reference on 2025 but I haven’t had time to calculate the harvest log totals and I might not do so. I know we struggled with fall crops a lot in 2025 especially because there was 2-3 weeks in which I was not able to do field walks and attend my experienced eye on all the crops. And I feel okay with that. I know that we were able to give more value in the CSA than what members paid (as we have every year) and that feels good.
2026 Outlook
As I mentioned above, I still plan to grow plenty of food for our family, worker shares and for our beloved restaurant partners! I am curious to see what our Land produces with less work than annual veggies, especially the orchard given how many thousands of pounds of fruit we have gotten over the years.
Travis and I have hopes to do a bit better job maintaining the farm: easier mowing, trimming back the woods hiking path, more livestock grazing for less mowing, etc. It is pretty amazing how much work just owning 40 acres takes and we are hoping that we can be better caretakers without needing to focus so much on selling veggies.
How you can continue to support us and get farm fresh veg?
Stay on or join our e-mailing list (join at the bottom of our homepage)! I will occasionally be sending out updates and alerts to when we have an abundance of fresh fruit and veg to share for on farm pick up. Think bulk tomatoes, cucumbers, blueberries, peaches, apples and more!
Purchase from Pasture & Plenty as they are our main outlet for veggies now. Supporting them directly supports us. Other notable purchasers are Brix Cider in Mt. Horeb and Cadre in Madison.
Join our Tribal Mama’s worker share group on Friday mornings! More info here- shoot me an email if you are interested.
Join us in our Flicker Wild Church community in which we host the cross-quarter, family-friendly worship holy days here on the farm!
If you are looking for a new CSA farm, check out the farm search tool on FairShare CSA Coalition’s website!
All blessings,
Farmer Beth
