April Happenings…
If you were to drive by the farm stand at any time in the last month, it might look like we’d shuttered our (non-existent) doors and moved on; if you want my complete honesty, there were a few years we’d talked about that “what if”. But this is 2020, and we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. We’re fortunate to live in a time and place in the world where we’ve never known an empty grocery store shelf, and the idea of standing in line for our groceries (even if we can still afford to pay for them) is alien to many (but not all) of us. We’ve seen a lot of businesses temporarily shut their doors, without knowing whether they’ll be able to recover from this turn of events and reopen.
But that’s not “Pete’s” and that’s not what’s happening. We know that nothing in life is guaranteed, except maybe the ol’ ‘death and taxes’, and most important: people have to eat, and “somebody’s gotta feed you people”. That’s why you’ll see us hard at work, last week it was new plastic on our greenhouse, this week there’s a massive excavator parked on our lawn along with some tidy piles of topsoil. We’re making room for a very exciting change at Pete’s: we purchased a 24 by 24 farm stand building! We’ll at long last have lights and heat, as well as a freezer and coolers for retail. If all goes as planned, we should have local eggs, milk, cheese, and meats for sale alongside our usual bounty of produce. Having lights and electricity will mean we can stay open longer in the Fall, maybe right up to Thanksgiving. It’s an exciting change for us, because you’ll be able to buy everything you need for a 100% local meal. To help with our season extension, we’re also putting up a second “high tunnel” in the next month.
We believe that with the world so full of uncertainty, local food is more important now than ever. We also believe that fresh, nutritious, local food should be available to everyone. We are making big plans and we can’t wait to see you all in June. If you see us out working in the fields, a honk and a big wave is always welcome- we’ve missed you all.
