Jul 28, 20234 min read

Endings & Beginnings {Week 9 CSA}

We're preparing to pass a baton on the farm. One we've obsessively tended to and are proud to give to two remarkable humans. Prema Farm is about to change hands.

Sometime in the spring of 2022, Zach and I both separately felt the winds beginning to change. We had started the farm in 2016 and moved into our tiny home on the farm in 2019, and we agreed that when our oldest daughter was nearing the ceiling of her loft bedroom it would be time to establish a foundation... perhaps on the beautiful and complex land we were farming, or perhaps elsewhere. It was last year that we both recognized that the time had come to decide. We've been leasing the farmland that Prema nourishes, and that arrangement will likely exist in perpetuity, but securing a permit to build a foundation out here is not simple. So our search for somewhere where we could sink forever roots began. I was born in Tahoe and Zach was partly raised in Reno, but we are vagabonds to the very core. Our search included everywhere.

After a year of vast considerations and various property tours, those winds of change landed us right back where our story began. A decade ago, we fell in love on an island in the wide-open Pacific as I was beginning to dabble with farming and Zach was emerging from years of travel across 60 countries. We were on the Big Island of Hawai'i and, as the magic of that freshly-formed sizzling isle would have it, we are now being called back there with well-worn hands, sharpened skills, resilient love, and two vibrant farm fairies in tow.

This plan has been rumbling for some months, but the obvious question of who will take over Prema Farm? had yet to be answered. We decided to wait to announce our departure until we could tell everyone our succession plan, to skip any worried brows. We've worked way too hard to make Prema Farm successful in the face of unpredictable high country weather, the depths of winter, global pandemics, and a fledgling consumer market for hand-scale farm goods to simply let it fade away. But we also knew that we had to find folks as crazy as we are.

Introducing, David and Courtney! 😂

Yes, it's true. They're just as nuts and passionate as we are, and far more poised to take Prema to its furthest potential than we've ever been. David has actually been working with our farm for the last year and a half, building out client farms and running one on his own from its inception. He's durable and tenacious (a requirement for all high desert farmers), dedicated to soil health and the quality it provides, and more aesthetically tuned than Zach and I combined. Have you noticed those beet bunches perfectly wrapped in twine, with a bow? That's him!

Courtney is David's partner and boasts an impressive career in marketing, graphic design, and events. She will absolutely be elevating Prema's brand and marketing, and will also be heavily involved with farm operations as she comes with great experience in owning and running businesses. Both are intensely bright, filled with good humor, and in alignment with Prema's core principles. They're two of our best friends and we couldn't imagine a better duo to take Prema to the next level. (Did I mention that they don't have kids? Prema Farm is about to get loved on in an unprecedented way!)

As many of you know, we also started and continue to run the Riverside Farmers Market. In 2020, we moved that market under the ownership of a long-running nonprofit called Local Food Network. I'll be replacing myself as the director of that market and, if all goes as planned, Reno should be none the wiser. The market is in a great place in its development to be handed over, and Zach and I look forward to returning for visits to see how this proverbial garden of local farms, a community-centered marketplace, and the wonderful people stewarding it all are doing as the seasons roll through time.

But before then, we are reveling in the allure of our high desert skies, delicious alpine lakes, and the many faces who have made our time here so incredibly rich and nourishing. We'll be finishing 2023 out as the owners of Prema while we train our successors, and you can expect announcements later on about festive celebrations before our departure.

We feel good about this transition. It feels right and has almost been unfolding on its own accord. Zach and I will always be students in farming, parenting, and pretty much everything else we're passionate about, but we are perhaps most adept at listening for and to life's subtle whims. It's the only skill we care to hone perfectly, as it's reliably delivered our greatest joys—in all of the surprising ways they've come. Life is like that for many it seems. It's the curveballs that take us where we've longed for, often gifting us what we never knew we needed.

May we forever be bold and supple enough for the wind to carry us home.

Inside Your Box This Week

Cherry Tomatoes

Purple Radishes

Lettuce Head

Salad Turnips

Swiss Chard

Curly Kale

Romaine

Zucchini

Carrots

Dill