This year has been nothing but eventful, and we wanted to take a minute to reflect. Our team is dedicated, incredible, and never ceases to roll with what life throws at us!
On Saturday evening, July 11th, a pop-up thunderstorm arrived and we watched out the window as the skies darkened and the clouds rolled in. We badly needed the rain so it was a welcome change. Things quickly got intense! We worried in silence as the lightning crashed and the winds and the rains got so hard that we couldn’t see even a few yards away. When the skies cleared a little, we saw in horror that the mobile chicken coop had been was lifted in the storm by a mini tornado and tossed 100 yards away. Sadly, about 40 chickens died. The other 350 chickens huddled terrified wondering what the hell just happened?! The power went out as many trees were also toppled.
We spent Sunday and Monday surveying the damage, harvesting, washing, and trying to run the farm without electricity. We remained without power until Monday afternoon. Over the weekend we had 2 generators running the meat coolers, we cleared out the gas stations of bagged ice for the veggies in the walk-in cooler, and we hauled wagonloads of water from neighbors for our animals (the farm is run off of a well with an electric pump). The winds pulverized some of the veggies too. That Monday afternoon, a crew of 3 trucks and a dozen power company employees came to our rescue and fixed multiple damaged lines. And just like that, the POWER CAME BACK ON to many cheers!!! It has been a scramble around here. It has been stressful, but also rewarding to see our team come together and be resourceful and smart to fill in the gaps. We are thankful for our team!
Speaking of our great team, this week we will say goodbye to Lillian (Lilly). She has been a part of our team for the past year and a half and now she is moving on to start graduate school. This fall she will be studying Sustainable Food Systems. Lillian has been such a positive part of our team and we will miss her dearly. Formerly our Post Harvest Operation Manager, she has had her hands on almost every veggie that has left the farm over the past year. Lillian also took on leadership of helping the farm pass our GAP third-party food safety audit and spearheaded our COVID on-farm food safety policies. Lilly is also always up for a challenge – like when I made her in charge of bottle feeding the orphan lambs living in my bathroom. Many of you know Lilly, because she is instantly everyone’s best friend, and has convinced many of her friends to join the CSA. Thank you Lilly for your time, and dedication to Rootbound Farm, and our CSA community. We will miss you, and we know you are on to do great things!
