As I gaze across the meadows (fields) at the mountains and the blue sky I feel so grateful for the life we have. It’s been almost one year since we bought this little farm and moved on to it and not a day goes by that I don’t say thank-you, to whom ever is listening. Since last year we’ve been going pretty hard improving the inside spaces and the outside gardens. We’ve renovated a small barn turned residence, into a commercial kitchen and farm store. We’ve more than quadrupled the size of the existing vegetable garden and added many more in new areas. We’ve hooked up the two wells and installed all the drip line irrigation, even down to the lower field where the peas, beans, and squash are growing. We’ve harvested and sold so much already and summer has only just begun.
Besides it being our dream to own a small farm, we also needed the space to expand our Clever Crow business. We had a nstural gas line installed and now off our deck, we can boil sea water much faster with a commercial stand-alone stock pot burner. It’s a heavy duty piece of equipment, which has enabled us to more than double the sea salt production. We are planning on buying burner number two by the end of summer. We’re still a small operation, but steadily and carefully growing.
The herb and spice blend part of the business has experienced rapid growth in the past twelve months. This farm gives us the space to grow lots of herbs although there never seems to be enough oregano or thyme; we could probably use an acre of each. And rosemary for the sea salt. There is never enough rosemary. There is a wonderful woman who lives in Comox, Linda, who now brings me armfuls of fresh rosemary every couple of weeks. Her rosemary is out of control so I’m grateful that she can share it with us until our plants grow big enough to harvest from. Thank-you Linda.
I look forward to writing and sharing small triumphs and challenges about salt making and farm life. Hopefully I’ll hear from you, the readers of this blog too. I’ll keep this one short and sweet. I have a lot to learn about blog writing and tweaking my website, so bear with we as I figure it all out. If there is anything you’d like me to write about, let me know by sending me an email to clevercrowfarm@gmail.com
Happy solstice!
Lia McCormick
