Profitable Produce

I’m coming fresh off my birthday weekend and have lots to share!

I am excited to share that we made our first profit from the farm! I’ve recently joined the Cherokee Clay Food Alliance (CCFA), a local nonprofit that aims to improve access to locally grown food in Cherokee and Clay Counties. One of CCFA’s initiatives is the Local Growers’ Farmstand, a booth at the farmer’s market where local, small-scale producers can drop off produce and the CCFA will sell them on your behalf – super helpful for someone like me who doesn’t own the supplies for a market booth or have time to staff a booth every Saturday. Well, my garden produced a slew of cucumbers all at once and I had several dozen eggs taking up valuable fridge space so I decided to take advantage of the Local Growers’ Stand at the farmers market. As AC and I walked up to the stand with our basket of cucumbers, another market vendor asked if he could buy them all! Then, before we left, a visitor walked up to buy a dozen of our eggs. We made a whopping $26 and barely had to do anything. Keep in mind, we never intended to profit off our farm products – this was just an experiment, but since it was successful and easy, we’ll be back next time we have extras!

Renovation updates: The cabin is coming along nicely. We’re finally at the point where we can see all of our work come to fruition. The bathroom is almost finished (just waiting on the plumber to hook everything up) and we have just a couple pieces of drywall to finish hanging in the cabin. AC is going to spray insulation in the ceiling this week, then we’ll paint, lay down floor, and install our kitchenette.

I mentioned earlier that I just celebrated my birthday weekend and it was great! On Thursday, we went to a local restaurant called The Crown, where everything is gluten free! It was farm-to-table, unique, and delicious!

Friday, after my half-day of work, AC took me on a surprise adventure. We started at the Nantahala Outdoor Center – we’d never explored it before so we made a quick stop to walk around and check it out. It’s a really cool spot and I encourage all future visitors to check it out 🙂

Next, we headed to Asheville so I could redeem my free birthday bundlet from Nothing Bundt Cakes, an absolute must have! They’re a favorite of ours and have a yummy gluten free option. We took our bundlets to Looking Glass Falls on the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed the scenery and our cake at the same time.

We ended Friday at Duck Pond Pottery in Brevard, NC, where we stayed in an A-frame treehouse right on the French Broad River! The owner was also hosting a bluegrass concert that night so we had a neat experience, complete with free, live entertainment. This stay doubled as a recon mission for us since we’ve been thinking about building similar A-frames for guests on our property. We took notes on what we’ll do differently and what we’ll replicate.

On Saturday, we chased waterfalls. AC found a slew of easy hikes with stunning views. My favorite was Whitewater Falls; it’s the tallest falls east of the Rockies and it was pretty impressive! We also explored a quaint little town called Highlands, which was also having an arts and crafts show alongside their local farmers market. After wandering around the booths, AC bought some delicious toffee, and then we headed to nearby Dry Falls for a picnic lunch. The neat thing about Dry Falls was the fact that you can walk behind it (always a magical feeling). Our weekend expedition ended there so we headed back to our peaceful little holler.

Here are a couple more fun photos from the farm: red and golden raspberries from the bushes the previous owners planted, and a rogue pumpkin that’s currently trying to take over the chicken coop!

Until next time!

Charli