Starting Up Again

Hi all!  My name is Ainsley and I will be taking over the blog from Justina!  I have been on the Araceli Farms Team for the past three summers and I am loving finally getting to be here during the rest of the year too!  I am looking forward to sharing my own perspective with you all through the blog.  Thank you for reading that brief introduction and now on to the fun stuff!

The wind is picking up outside of the barn and it's finally starting to feel like summer is saying her goodbyes.  From where I'm sitting I can see all of the little improvements we made this year; a new set-up for the shop, a product sample wall, samples of each type of lavender for the tour guide to pass out before taking everyone into the field, among many other things.  I feel extremely proud of the work the team did this year, the dedication and care seep out through the edges of this place.  Throughout the first few weeks of the season we were simultaneously harvesting and hosting farm visit days.  As we harvest and hang bundles on the racks in the barn we prepare for the next season.  In the early mornings during the week we harvested Grosso, one of the more aromatic varieties of lavender we have on the farm.  When these bundles have dried they become bouquets, or their buds are used to fill things like sachets and pillows.  Harvesting early allows for the buds to retain more oils, rather than doing it later in the season when the plants are much drier.  I have come to truly enjoy harvesting, during summer of '23 I harvested nearly the entire season.  We started with the culinary varieties, as they are much smaller plants and finished with the larger plants, Grosso and Provence.  I found myself looking out onto the field this summer and remembering what it was like to be out there with only the sun and bumblebees to hear my heavy breathing (it may be fun, but it does become hard work after a few hours).  I do not recall exactly how many racks we filled last season, but at give or take 440 bundles per rack, even a few racks seems like a tall order.  Mostly what I remember though is how fulfilled I felt every day, this is probably the word I use to describe this place most often, fulfilling.  Every summer people visit us and bring their wonder and excitement, and it just continues to reinforce the mission of Araceli Farms.  The idea of "emerg[ing] from the busy chaos of this modern world", quoting our website, is something made possible by the attitudes and joy brought by those who visit.  One of the conversations we find ourselves having every summer is how fulfilling it is to engage with visitors.  From their first deep breaths  of dried lavender and the remarks about how good it smells out here, to the bright gratitude from people as they bring back their shears from picking their own bundles; we see your enthusiasm and it fills us with joy.  

 

 

 

Just to catch you all up, now that the blog will be active again I asked Justina a few questions.  We decided to do this check-in one or two times a month so look out for that!

 

 

Farm

What are the lavender plants doing during this month?

The biggest thing right now is making sure that they get watered.  Irrigation is always tricky - it feels like something always goes wrong and finding help when it comes to pumps and irrigation equipment can be difficult.  I recently found someone who came out and he was able to get it running but didn't give me any indication as to how much it would cost or when he would come out.  Once I called they came out the next day and a week later I received a bill for $1,000 dollars; but the plants got watered.  Next up we will be worrying about pruning the lavender!  Which as you can imagine is quite the project - we will also have the sheep back out to help us manage the weeds.

 

How is the garden doing?

The garden is good ! I feel like Ainsley would know best since they are out there watering them throughout the week.  

[ Ainsley here; the garden has been growing like CRAZY.  For about two months it felt like we were being haunted by zucchinis, I will add some photos.  They were made into a million different dishes, which was gratifying!!  We had so many that I ended up bringing some to my friends in Los Angeles in August.  I buckled them into my back seat during the drive down there because they were that big. ]

It was a big success in my eyes as Cailin learned how to drive a tractor in the process when we first started to prep for the planting.  In the process we got a ton of squash and zinnias!.  The tomatoes didn't do too well so I'll have to do some more research on that, but we do have some beautiful hibiscus, amaranth and zinnias blooming right now.  The squash is dying back and we all can't get over how much they produced!  We really couldn't keep up and the chickens got so many of them.  It felt like you needed to check them everyday with how quickly they grew, they went from seedlings to being 18+ inches in days it felt like!

                 

What is our main goal for projects/farm work?

Right now honestly it's just to get past this heat.  We have been out working in it since June and are so tired. After that and in the next few days I'm sitting down to look at my grants (more on this later).  I’ll also be figuring out ordering plants, prep work needing to be done, whether I need to hire someone to help with this, etc.

How are we prepping for the next season? 

Right now we are prepping for the holidays and our site to reopen, but again it feels like this heat is just zapping the energy out of me and prep currently feels like scaling back and focusing on our private events.

How did our goals from last month pan out?

Really great!  We've been focusing on our venue and I've personally been trying to declutter my personal items and items I've accumulated in the business - if you're interested stay tuned for a "fall cleaning sale"  likely to come soon!

Venue

What events do we have this month?

Currently the only plan is for private events that we have lined up.  We have some memorial services, small weddings and elopements coming up!

How did the events go last month?

So good!  I love our clients, we wrapped up the very last wedding with our old pricing / packages which felt good.  It feels so fun and great to see so much growth within our offerings and I feel like they are in a place where it just keeps getting better and better.  I'm having so much fun with it which translates into the clients having fun and it's been lovely!

                           

Products 

Are we open, updates?

Our online shop is currently closed!  We will reopen on November 1st and we will launch our holiday items on November 11th at 11am!!

New products? Favorite products? Testimonials?

For now I’ll just say, our holiday line up is getting me EXCITED.

BTS

How is Frank?

The cutest happiest dog I've ever met - he's the best!

                                      

What was the hardest part of work last month?

Juggling life stuff and work.  When my personal life gets busy, hectic and hard I scale back a lot at work to only the very immediate needs of my clients and new projects get pushed out, which is hard.  It makes me feel like I'm dropping the ball and creates some anxiety - so I am always working on allowing things to happen on their own timeline.  Something a friend, Becca & Co, said really helped; she mentioned that scheduling time to go through your email is best because your email is often full of things people need or want from you. 

Answering emails seems like a quick task in and of itself but oftentimes there is more that goes into it.  Right now it feels like each email I have is paired with a “to-do.” So, this coupled with what another friend said, about how there will always be asks, requests, messages, and to-dos has me working on prioritizing (which is so hard for my brain).

What are your current obsessions?

I'm a gamer girl now.  My partner and I have been home quite a bit, so we bought a switch on a whim and we've been hooked.  We've been playing Zelda and Smash Bros.  Other than that just trying to get to somewhat of a structured schedule to help my brain mellow out and focus in.  I'm back at hot yoga too!  It's probably one of the best things for my mental health and overall well-being - I love it and need to remember to always prioritize it!

Misc.

Updates about markets?

We miss being at the Sacramento Farmers Market so much but we are currently looking for someone to take that over!  The only market that we have planned is Makers Mart in December - which is one of our all time favorites!!

We are so so excited to get the blog into an active rhythm, so thank you for reading and for your general interest in the farm, we appreciate it more than you know.