Do you know the muffin man?
The trail to the peak on Mount Jo, near Heart Lake.
We ran away.
Allie and I took a few days to go up North to the Adirondacks. It is becoming a tradition for us to head there at the end of the summer season. We drove up in the dark listening to ghost stories. Nothing to see but what the headlights scrolled through on the windy path up Route 28. (Spooky.)
We woke up to bright colors and mountain backdrops on the tail end of leaf season in Wilmington, N.Y. We took advantage of the one sunny day we got on our trip and hiked. It was pleasant. Damp, soft ground that smelled like pine and autumn. We met a senior dog named Donny. He was leading the way for his owner and crew. They asked if Donny would have trouble making it up the rock scramble near the peak. Donny didn't seem concerned.
It's nice to step away from the farm for a few days. To force yourself to have nothing to do. To relax and reorganize your thoughts about the many projects ahead.
Winter always seems to be the time to dream. When you're not tied down by summer workload and weekly obligations, farm potential has room to spread its roots. The land of make believe for adults. Daydreaming about garden beds and farm layout rather than princesses and dragons. Our minds are already setting into that mode.
Every craft, whether you're knitting handmade sustainable winter socks or designing a new efficient system to heat a home, needs some solitude. Moments to think and tweak. But if your product is going to have any value it needs to serve the customer. You've got to know what the customer likes. Do you know the muffin man? How about: Does the muffin man know you?
I try to aim at targeting the needs of our community by farming like a customer. How are things priced and packaged in our local grocery store? What's out front? What is in our friends’ and families’ refrigerators? What would draw me into a farmers market booth?
But a lot of our "hit" products, so to speak, have come from listening to our customers. Both directly in conversations at checkout and indirectly by what sells. If something sells out fast, grow more of it more consistently.
Seems obvious when I write it down. But you can't create in a vacuum. Or you shouldn't.
Edgar Allan Poe, since he's trending right now, died of mysterious causes. One theory I read was poisoning of toxic gas from holing up in his house. Maybe if he had to sell his stories and poems in the fresh air of the town square every week he would have lived a long, fulfilling life. And maybe, inspired by his neighboring farmers market vendors, he would start a garden, filled with black radish, fiddlehead ferns, and other ghoulish-themed delights. He would read his plants poetry by the moonlight as his backyard hens Ligeia, Lenore and Annabel Lee settled in their coop for the night. He'd name it Nevermore Farm and every CSA box would come with an original work of prose.
He'd be happy. And his customers would be full.
—John
