After a lot of thought and consideration, I've decided to take a hiatus from farming for 2016, or possibly longer. For those of you who have followed my journey in 2015, you know it's been a hard year. After farming for four years, I've come to the conclusion that farming the way I've been doing things is just too hard without enough return. Despite how much I love farming--how much it has become part of my identity, how I thought I'd never go back to working in an office--the realities of my current farming situation have caught up with me and so it became clear that I would have to make a change. Therefore, I've decided to take some time off from farming and get an office job with a paycheck while I save some money and think about what my future in farming may hold. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to gardening in the backyard this year, growing for myself and just for fun. Taking the business aspect out of something I love (growing things) is understandibly very liberating and I look forward to a relaxing year in the garden. However, this decision to step away from farming is a very big deal to me and is fraught with conflicting emotions. I feel at peace with this decision, but I am also very sad about it. Even though at this point I'm trying to think about this decision as a temporary break from farming, rather than a decision to "quit" and never go back, it's hard to not feel sad.To my CSA customers: thank you so much for all your support during the past four years, especially last season. I feel bad that I wont be able to offer you veggies again this year. If you're interested in finding another CSA farm, I'd recommend looking at the Band of Farmers CSA directory here https://boftccc.wildapricot.org/CSA-Directory . Or check out the 2015 CSA guide put out by FamilyFarmed.org here http://www.familyfarmed.org/find-a-chicago-area-csa/ . If you'd like any further advice on choosing a CSA, feel free to email me with your questions.
That's all for now,
Farmer Jessica
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