Hey all, Troy here,

It’s that time again, the time where our culture forces us to remember the past and think about the future, even if we’d really rather not. That’s right, it’s a whole new year, and a whole new decade as well (which means ten times the reflection). New Year’s is of course a celebratory holiday, characterized by fireworks, champagne, and kissing. I enjoy these festivities and the whole spectacle as much as the next teetotaling cynic, but it’s hard to ignore the tinge of sadness that also coats this season.

We’re supposed to take stock of our year: the successes and the failures, the triumphs and the regrets, all of it. And a lot can happen in a year. Even if it doesn’t feel like a lot happened to you, we all at the very least recognize that the Roman calendar moves up one tick, the Earth revolves around the sun, and a year does in fact elapse (in other words, you weren’t born this morning with fake memories implanted into your brain). So if you were hoping to hide away and avoid the subject altogether, then I apologize. But yes, change did occur, things did happen, time marched forward, greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere, and wherever we’re all headed, we just took one step closer to it together.

I spent New Year’s Eve with some college buds – some of whom I had seen as recently as Thanksgiving, others I hadn’t seen since graduating in 2013, and a few I had never met before. We played games, did puzzles, sang karaoke, and ate a beautifully roasted freedom ranger from our freezer. We ended up missing the countdown and ball drop because we were busy sharing our reflections on 2019 and our intentions for 2020. I’m sure some of you are familiar with the game Rose, Thorn and Bud, in which you share your favorite moment, your worst moment, and something you look forward to. I was the first to share, and frankly, I didn’t have to think about it too long.

My Rose was finally getting engaged to my love and life partner, Victoria. My Thorn was the sinking, gutting feeling after the barn burned down – and subsequently telling the whole world that our barn burned down. And my Bud is the wedding that we plan to start planning any day now. These events certainly stood out as the most obvious and dramatic life changes, so I didn’t need to dig very deep into my memories. However, after a bit more reflecting, I realized there were a lot more contenders than I had initially thought.

As it turns out, we had a really packed year. Dozens of things happened this year that would have been obvious Roses or Thorns in any other year of my life. We bottle fed a baby lamb, we got a dog, we had many friends come and we fed them meals made entirely of food that we grew ourselves. We also lost a lot: a family member, a number of animals, crops, and jobs. We dug graves and we witnessed births. It’s hard to believe how much happened! Maybe all these memories were implanted after all… Or maybe this is just life on the farm.

Not all of the drama from last year was farm-related. But I have to say, farming is by far the most dramatic and emotional work I’ve ever done. Farming always exists on the knife’s edge between life and death. When we make mistakes, things die. When we succeed, it’s through the miraculous resilience of our plants and animals – which ultimately, in death, feed us.

This year has been a learning experience for us, which means we’ve cared for a lot of life and witnessed a lot of death. This will be true next year as well, and so on, as long as we remain farmers. If this sounds like a hard pill to swallow, it may be, but please note that death surrounds us always, whether we see it or not. Everything we eat was at one point harvested. As farmers, we are simply a lot closer to that moment of transition than most.

In return, we also get to feel closer to the land and the environment in which our food grows. Never have I felt so much a part