Week Eight. Christmania

27th December 2011

This is my reason (or excuse) for being so late in posting these past few weeks. Christmas on the farm was a sight to behold. In the six years I’ve worked full time there has always been a period of ‘cooldown’ in the run up to the holidays, with so many people away and parties galore I’ve known the luxury of a time to take stock and reorganise; not this year.

The week leading up to Christmas we were harvesting like maniacs, getting all of the produce ready for farm boxes, not to mention the shop, pub and cafe. The farm had a merry gobbling flock of Norfolk Black Turkeys which were slowly silenced in the final few weeks, and an army of people plucked and prepared them for many a happy Christmas dinner (sorry Mum). Last week these were all either delivered direct or collected from the farm which meant we interacted with many more customers than usual.

The final Friday before Christmas was the culmination of this mania and the efforts of all who work, intern and contribute to the farm. Though there were mildly stressful moments across the board I think that I can say that the unity made it a pleasant experience to go through (and come out of the other side of) together; which is a typical feeling of this farm, and goes back to the sense of community I wrote about a few weeks ago.

The customers of the farm are encouraged to feel a part of the place, and especially the members of the farm box scheme. The whole place is open for the public to walk around and we actively encourage members to come up for work days or just to visit and experience where their food is coming from. During the most hectic of afternoons one of our customers popped by the packing shed to see how we were getting on and brought some chocolate for the box packing team as a thank you and as sustenance to get us through.

We received overwhelmingly positive feedback in the days following, even though some of the last deliveries were a little past people’s bedtimes. To then go home armed with a fresh Church Farm turkey and be able to talk with my family about where it came from and how it was reared was the icing on the cake (received better by some than others). It felt really quite special to be a part of so many people’s Christmas dinners and I look forward wholeheartedly to continue in this tradition wherever I may find myself growing in the future. A belated happy Yuletide to one and all.