As many of you are already aware, the farm experienced severe flooding last Sunday. We got 7.5” of rain in under 36 hours, causing Floras Creek to jump her banks overnight and swallow the entire valley. We haven’t seen a flood like this since 1996, before we were growing produce on our bottomland.
Needless to say, we experienced a lot of damage: large sections of our perimeter deer fence along the creek were battered flat; the farmstand was filled with mud and wreckage; the footings of our new equipment shed were undermined; a few pieces of equipment were lost altogether; and some of our winter and early spring crops were destroyed.
On the bright side, the horses are ok, our crew and family are safe, our newly-germinated peas and favas are alive and pushing through the mud, and we gained a LOT of new topsoil – anywhere from one to twelve inches, depending on the location. As big a setback as it is on the cusp of busy springtime, we are focusing on the positive: Valley Flora would not have the productive, deep, generous soil that it does without periodic floods like this over the millennia.
We spent last week cleaning up as best we could with the help of our incredible, dedicated crew. They donned their raingear and great attitudes and went to town getting the farmstand put back together for our winter CSA pickup, and most importantly, resecuring all the strawberry beds before the next storm. We had high winds predicted for Wednesday, and with all the strawberry plastic loose and flapping, we risked losing the whole patch if we didn’t re-bury all the edges – by hand with shovels. That’s a job we normally do with a bed-shaping machine, but our amazing crew plus a couple friends showed up on Tuesday to help get the job done in the nick of time. A big thank you to Chris Valentine and Jana Rogers for getting in the trenches with us!!! It was over a half mile of mud-shoveling when all was said and done.
As for the Winter CSA, we were fortunate that our winter production field is some of our highest ground and the least flood-prone. We will continue to pack and deliver CSA shares as planned, albeit with a few omissions. We lost certain crops – half of our overwintered cauliflower and some of the spring raab, this week’s bed of baby arugula, plus spinach and salad mix that were supposed to go into CSA shares over the next month. We made the decision this week to suspend all of our winter wholesale sales and focus exclusively on filling CSA baskets in an effort to keep them as full and abundant as possible for you. Fortunately we've been over-filling the Winter CSA for the past five weeks, as usual, with a total value-to-date of $297 for the first half of the season. That puts us almost $30 ahead on Winter value, which will help offset some of the missing items we had hoped to include in the next two CSA deliveries. We are replanting as quickly as we can in hopes that we’ll have new green leafies by the second half of April for you, and we're bumping up our production of quick crops like micro mix to help fill gaps in the meantime. Some of those efforts are being squelched by the ongoing rain, with a wet forecast into the first part of April, so we’re taking full advantage of every square inch of our field tunnels and greenhouses right now.
Our summer CSA sold out last week, the earliest ever. We are always grateful for our CSA members, but it’s challenging moments like these that the community supported agriculture model takes our appreciation to a deeper level. The kind messages and moral support that have been "flooding" in have buoyed us, and the checks you’ve been sending for the upcoming summer season will provide much-needed capital this spring to help us rebuild and make repairs, in addition to affording seeds, amendments, and spring labor when our other sales channels (farmstand and wholesale) are dormant. Our CSA members are part of what makes Valley Flora resilient. Thank you.
Every Wednesday I drop my daughter off at school in the early morning for Jazz Band practice and then have a habit of taking a run on the beach with my dog. Last Wednesday our next storm was ramping up and the south wind was already blowing a stiff 30 mph when I pulled up at the South Jetty. As I laced my shoes I hesitated, wondering if I had it in me to battle a headwind after the previous two days’ physical and emotional marathon of flood clean-up. Off we went anyway, Juno bounding gleefully through the whitewash, the ocean the color of milk chocolate from all the runoff in the Coquille. I ground through 2.5 miles, head down and pushing into the wind. But at my turn-around spot at Johnson Creek, I rounded a big split boulder and started heading back, the stiff headwind suddenly a tailwind. It swept me forward effortlessly and we coasted easily back to the jetty, Juno leaping and playing in delight. It occurred to me then that sometimes it's the first mile that's the hardest, not the last.
Not to jinx ourselves, but maybe the coming season will be something akin: we’ve got our heads down right now, working against a big headwind of flood damage and ongoing frozen federal grants. But maybe all that new topsoil will carry us into a vibrant, abundant season - a silver lining tailwind like none other. Here's hoping.
