The winter sun rises late and stays low on the horizon as we edge towards the Winter Solstice. As farmers we’re always acutely aware of the sky—the weather, of course, but also the position and angle of the sun, and the length of the days. The sun is our lifeblood, our taskmaster, and our measure of the seasons—all good reasons to pay attention to him.

So we shift our harvest schedules to accommodate the light and the frost in the mornings. In the afternoons we’ve been staying busy with year-end cleanup projects in the barn and the greenhouse, cleaning tools and packing things away until next season.

Our storage crops are also getting their last bits of attention before we stack them in crates and bins reaching up to the barn ceilings. If all goes well, we’ll still be pulling crates off those stacks for our winter farmers markets that run well into April.

Some of our crew members are headed off at this time of year, some for travel, new jobs, or new cities. We’re sad to see them go, but some will return in the spring, and we hope the others will send word back about their adventures out in the world.