Advice from Lydia

This is my friend Lydia.  She runs Luna Field Farm with her partner Wian, and we have become good friends, sharing our farming journeys with each other and enjoying each other's farm products.  Lydia and Wian raise phenomenal pastured lamb, beef, pork, poultry, and eggs on their farm about an hour away from us.

We are sharing a delivery location this season, so our customers will be able to order meat and pick it up with their veggies.  This way we get to see each other every second week despite the busy summer farming season!

Lydia is a very smart person and an ass-kicking woman farmer who I admire.  We can geek out over online marketing and farm bookkeeping as we are both in that realm in our businesses.  Lydia and I met last night for the first time after the fire at our farm this past Saturday.  I expressed how many people are wanting to help and how I don't know what to tell them.  She immediately came up with the perfect solution, one that makes me feel hopeful and optimistic for the future.

"When people ask what they can do to help, tell them to support you.  Tell them to buy your vegetables this season and tell their friends about you, so that you can recover from this loss.  Farming is hard.  It's really hard, and at times it feels easier to give up than to keep going.  The best thing your customers can do right now is to keep supporting you so that you can remember why you love doing this, continue to have it be a viable choice for you, and recover from this setback."

Wise words from a very good friend.  I did consider giving up.  But then I think of all the people who would be so disappointed, and that makes it necessary and easier to keep going.  So, thank you to Lydia for sharing her strength with me and thank you to all of our supporters, who appreciate our hard work and make it possible to continue on.