I'm Back!

I can't believe it has been 4 months since my last entry, on October 12. Where did the time go?????

We sold almost all of our pumpkins but could feel the effects of the softening of the ecomony in that people did not buy as many pumpkins, skipped some of the other decorative items like hay, corn stalks and Indian corn, and ignored the scary decorative items for the most part. 2008 was not a year that people reveled in gore and we noticed very few front yards filled with gravestones, ghosts and headless ghouls. We did sell some huge, $100 creatures for $25 - $40 to regular customers with tweenage kids still in to Halloween magic.

In early November we closed the store for a few days and John and I drove to Myrtle Beach where we enjoyed an incredible week on the beach (and on the golf course for John). Our friends, Selene and Ron from Johnson City, TN joined us toward the end of the week. They brought me a Flip Video (which I hope they don't live to regret) so now you can enjoy a taste of our resort and location.

When John and I returned to Northampton after our trip, we launched full-speed ahead in to the Christmas Holiday Season - cutting greens and making wreaths, setting workshop schedules, and getting the gift shop dressed for the season. Eve, Abby and Brenda all helped to create some amazing fresh green decorations. The photos below do not do them justice, but will give you an idea of what we were up to.

We had several private parties for groups to make their own wreaths, kissing balls, centerpieces, etc. These workshops and parties are among the highlights of the season for me. I love it when participants come in thinking they have no skill and can't do it and leave with a gorgeous piece they have created themselves!

Growing up, my family always celebrated holidays in a big way, and Christmas was the biggest. I still love the food, the eggnog, the presents, the good spirit, the gatherings of friends and family. And, I also love the feeling of being crazy-busy at the farm. Major snowstorms on two of the three weekends between Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas most definitely impacted our sales, but we did sell all of our Christmas Trees and hold our own in the gift shop. This was not a big year for holiday decoration sales, even ornaments, which are usually a good item. We got the sense that people were simplifying this year and perhaps didn't have the energy to put everything out and then pack it up again. It also seems that we have all become desesitized to sales in the last couple of years, and in fact, seem to expect them. We don't mark our products up 200% so that we can put them on sale shortly after we put them out like many of the bigger stores, so a 50% off sale for us means we are selling items below cost. Used to be that we would do some pretty good business in the week after Christmas before we closed for the season but this year we saw only a very few of our regulars show up for eggnog and good deals.

After working 7 days/week for over 9 months, we were somewhat sad, but also relieved to close on December 31st. Since then, John had his right hip replaced on 1/5 (and has been pretty much out of commission for the last 5 weeks), we have ordered greenhouse supplies, seeds and starter plugs (and even gotten some planted), attended New England Grows, cleaned the greenhouse, done a physical inventory at the store, paid the bills, updated our bookeeping for year end and helped Maxx apply to two colleges. Maxx has taken over llama-care duties and was in charge of snow plowing until the transmission died on the truck. In late January, Faye and Abby spent 3 days at the New York Gift Show, scouring the market for fun, functional, unique, sustainable, useful, creative, enduring, meaningful, thoughtful, delicious, sensual new items for the gift shop. Stay tuned for more on that.