HAPPYDAY: A Season of Sweet Weather, Hard Work, and New Beginnings

Casey O’Neill is a cannabis and food farmer in Mendocino County who has been writing newsletters about his efforts to provide sustainable produce and marijuana. We feature his column once a week.

There are two downbeats in the year of the farm, one at each of the solstices, and each a time of clear transition. The unexpectedly cool, moist weather has been glorious for a pause for reflection, taking stock of the spring gone by and reveling in the moment of abundant growth and green softness shining with fresh moisture from light rain. This has been a spring to remember, mild and sweet, yet laced with some of the heaviest work we’ve ever done.

This is the first week that we aren’t out on the road after 5 consecutive Friday trips south to Sonoma and the Bay Area. The soft launch of our CSA Buyers Club has been one of the greatest experiences of my life, and it has been deeply joyful to connect with customers in the dispensaries we go to. The first step is always to begin, and once done, to refine and figure out how to be better at the effort, and we’re excited to continue to build momentum and make more connections out in the world as we expand.

We’ve always been a two markets/week farm, and with our shift into wholesale produce harvest on Monday, Tuesday market, and a smaller harvest day on Thursday for market and then Friday travel, it has been a lot to manage. With so much produce coming in, all of the other farm tasks have been compressed, and we’ve done a lot of planting on Sundays and other extra efforts that have been a big stretch to accomplish.

Looking back on the past few months I’m amazed that we’re still standing. The intensity of our labors combined with so many moving pieces in our operations have kept us juggling as we work to keep all the balls in the air. It has been incredible to see our team gel and really pull together as a cooperative force to get it all done. Between planting, harvest, sales, livestock, maintenance, and a ton of effort into two grant projects that are entering the final stages it has been a wild ride! When farming goes well, each piece of the operation has a way of getting just a little bit bigger each year, until you hit a point where it becomes too much and something has to give.

I think we’ll be scaling back the number of chickens we raise next year, and at the very least spacing out the batches more. This year we got birds every 2-3 weeks, and it made for such compressed timelines that the work felt too heavy. We’ll also be implementing a sheltered intermediate step for birds that leave the brooder but aren’t quite ready for the pasture, where we’ve suffered too many losses to make much of a viable effort at sales this year.

Pops always says “you win some, you lose some”, and I’ll add that so long as you win more than you lose, you’ll probably be in pretty good shape. Consistency and practice is the key to any skill and it’s nice to look back and see how much better the quality of our production has gotten over the years as we’ve defined our focuses, refined our planning processes and learned to work as a team in cooperation.

This week we sowed seeds exactly two weeks from the last planting, which is the timeline I try to maintain (but often end up closer to two and a half or three weeks). As we filled trays, sowed and transplanted in the propagation house I was delighted to realize that we were right on schedule. Consistent seed starting drives the entire operation, setting the metronome ticking for bed prep and transplanting and making sure we stay at full production without beds languishing with old crops gathering pests and wasting space.

One of our biggest strengths is staying on top of replanting, and at our limited scale this makes for enough production to sell to fill our market channels, be able to pay the bills and provide produce to our local food bank each month. Quick turnarounds and tight spacing in our rapid-rotation-intensive system are the keys to success.

It’s ironic that as summer arrives the weather is cool and mild, and I’m deeply grateful for the respite. We’ve finished planting most of the cannabis except for one big terrace at my place and one final round of clones that arrive this week and will fill the garlic beds that are ready for harvest along with a couple of other beds still waiting patiently. The beds that are already planted are thriving, especially with the feeding they got this week from the fresh blood from chicken slaughter.

I save the buckets from under the kill cones and dilute it with spring water to make a nutrient-rich tea that the plants absolutely love. I’m thrilled to be able to make use of every part of the chicken, as the offal goes into the compost pile and the blood nourishes perennials, fruit trees and cannabis. Feets and necks make nourishing bone broth throughout the year, organs make pate’ and whole chickens go into the freezer for hearty meals and helpful economic support that keeps the operation going. Closing loops like making use of the blood to strengthen the next generation of plants builds cyclical energy that is a core driver in my life.

As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!