Hi my lovely people,

How are you? The boxes were looking GORGEOUS this morning. Spring is such an awesome time of year where all plants are HAPPY. The shiny swiss chard and huge healthy beets makes an epic box, and of coarse those red strawberries from Alex Frecker are just incredible.

So it’s been one whole year since I started sending out ‘blog style’ emails on farm box day. Before this I would only email WHERE the produce came from and link a few recipes. A year ago I decided to step it up a notch and tell more story. And I’m not going to lie, there were some weeks were it was VERY challenging to come up with new & exciting topics…. like the one week where I talked about Bodhi & Jason’s birthday party. Has nothing to do with farming but hey I made some yummy food for 50 people and I wrote about that..

Looking back on this last year there has been some pretty remarkable things happen. It’s been really rad digging thru these old emails and seeing big change for us, the farmers, and our business.This year my dad, Tom Shepherd, got certified organic which we all thought would never happen; IT HAPPENED. We launched School Food Box, which is a fundraiser program where we deliver farm boxes to schools and give $3 back to the school per box delivered. We sadly watched John Givens house burn down in the Holiday Fire. We finally started offering home deliveries and now offer home deliveries from Goleta-Agoura Hills. I made some pretty awful videos of myself cooking in my small kitchen that make me cringe when I watch them. But really the best part about the last year is seeing the growth. People are really starting to care about the farming community, the planet, and what goes in their bodies. And because of this we are seeing a lot of the smaller farmers get more land, hire more workers, feed more mouths, and do better things for our environment.

I hope you take some time to browse thru old email blogs and laugh at my videos. I realized today how close we are to summer and all the summer blogs got me so stoked for summer food. If you have been getting a farm box for just a few months, I REALLY encourage you to stick around thru summer because this is when our farm boxes get super rad. You’ll love them, and we love you.

Katherine