Firefly Fields 2023: A Year (or Two) in Review

Hold on Tight and Just Keep on Marching!

It has been TWO years since Ben and I sat down to brainstorm and pull together an annual reflection. The most recent was 2021, and when I review that post almost immediately my eyes water and chest tightens – what a time it was?! As I wrote then ‘how fun and crazy’ life was to be in that moment, there was so much uncertainty and unknown behind us and in front of us. We didn’t know this at the time, but looking back we can say my dad was just starting to be in the real clear after an awful bout with Covid, and Ben and I took the GIANT LEAP of moving from Indiana into our ‘forever’ home near the family homestead in Michigan. Since then, so much. To now be able to relax in this day (January 4, 2024), take a breath and string a few words together surely feels like a gift.

Overall, times have been…ACTIVE. With both Ben and I working full-time off the farm and full-time on the farm, by the end of 2023, we were ready for a ‘staycation.’ I say this all (fresh into our first ever staycation) with a big smile and DELIGHT in my heart knowing we are the luckiest people in the world to get to do what we get to do. The last two years were full of new and big transitions – everything that comes with relocating your life and establishing a new homestead on 10 acres. No doubt, there have been moments in the last 24 months where we have had to calibrate and recalibrate Firefly activities (more markets, less markets, more hives, less hives, more marketing, less marketing, etc.) to ensure we were providing time, space, and attention to all the old, new, and ever-emerging responsibilities. Despite it all, steadily and sustainably, Firefly continues to grow in friendships, customers, products, and services. We can’t help but feel in our bones there are good times ahead for the field.

Just as old and new challenges and opportunities arose, we held on tight to our hopes, dreams, and each other allowing ourselves to sink deeper into the lessons of each experience. Sometimes catching our breath, though breathlessly moving into the next thing seemed to be the norm. All the sprints and marathons that came and went, felt like a constant one after another when going through it. Funny how difficult it is to recall them all now. It always seems impossible until it is done. Isn’t that the truth? You just keep on going, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, marching ever onward.

“It always seems impossible until it is done.”

Nelson Mandela

So as we move into 2024, a little weathered…but also a little steadier and wiser too, we reflect on the short and long stories of 2023+ that brought us to this new year.

2023 Rewind: A Year+ in Review

*Special Note: Many pictures to document the Action. Each photo section below is a gallery of multiple photos, swipe or click to advance to next picture!

Renovations, Restorations ‘Oh MY!’

• Ben and his father Dave opened our old farmhouse (built in 1890) back to the studs – installing new wiring, windows, insulation, and siding… on one side! This will take years to fully complete the entire house. SUCH A BIG PROJECT they did all themselves stretching across a very cold winter.
• Fallen buildings and old foundations were cleared – we repurposed one old barn foundation for our overwintering site for the bees as well as our queen rearing yard.
• We sealed up a beautiful old, dairy barn, especially the roof that was leaking at the seems and around the cupolas (the water was eating away at the rafters). Happy to say the barn is mostly dry now!
• Launched renovation of the carriage house, removing warped and broken concrete and asphalt, and pouring a nice solid foundation inside and around the carriage house. We have Firefly Plans for this building!
• These were the ‘highlights’ – there were so many more ‘smaller’ projects! We are doing our best to document as much as we can…best advice ever looking back through this slideshow.

Setting Up A Home

• We love our old farmstead so much – it’s a magical place that has floral blooms from March through November – including an 80+ year old hedge of brilliant peonies that explode with color and aroma around the first two weeks of June.
• Getting in tune with our new home and landscape has been a wonder. Ben’s mom, Jane, has been a wonder of plant whisperer teaching us all about the flowers, grasses, shrubs, vines, and more. Virginia’s dream of having a ‘Secret Garden’ of her own has been realized beneath the overgrowth.
• We broke ground on a new vegetable garden and planted an orchard for our home kitchen. We hardly go to the grocery store three seasons of the year, and we’ve canned, fermented, or preserved more than we need.
• CHICKENS!! We established our first and second chicken coop. We incubated and hatched our first baby chicks this spring. Aside from all the scratching and egg services, they provide constant entertainment (Chicken TV)!

Friends & Family & Food

• We hosted multiple farming focused groups out at Ma & Pa’s farm, including the Great Grains Great Women crew and Michigan State University’s Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems (SAFS) students. We’re honored to share and learn with others. Papa Archman is always a ham, and has a …unique and charming way with words. Always the crowd pleaser.
• Speaking of Archman, we got to celebrate him and other important youth sport coaches out at the farm. It was the most epic reunion brining people, parents, and players together again after 25 years.
• Virginia was delighted to reconnect with her elementary school science teacher, Mr. Jan Lawson, a master beekeeper and kind human. Jan has been keeping bees for over 45 years and has become an important mentor.
• Dr. Virginia had several speaking engagements this year getting to share stories from the farm to many different audiences including Colorado Dry Beans and Western Michigan University’s Department of Geography. Facebook (i.e. Meta) flew her out to Washington D.C. to meet and exchange stories with other small business owners using Meta Platforms for business marketing.
• Ben has made incredible connections for the farm participating in the Midwest GRIT training program geared towards food-grade grain farmers. This year, Firefly became members of the Artisan Grain Collaborate.
• Shout out to Firefly Friend, Kevin Messing of Sheridan Acres in Bay City, Michigan. Kevin is an expert on growing Heirloom Dry Beans in Michigan, as well as a machinist retrofitting and fixing the older, smaller equipment needed to plant, cultivate, and harvest these beans. Ben has learned a ton from Kevin to bring back to our farm.
• We loved participating in the Texas Township and Meridian Township Farmers’ markets. Given both Ben and Virginia’s schedules in 2023, we had to trim down the number of days this year at the market, but were able to add a few extra days back in before the end of the year. We LOVE Molly and Tom, the market managers at both locations’ willingness to work with us during these ‘active’ times.
• Thrilled to partner with BLOM Meadworks in Ann Arbor to provide organic buckwheat for their first ever gluten free Buckwheat and Millet Beer. Like most of their small batch rotations, it was sold out quickly.
• FAMILY MEALS at home. Just feels so good for both of us to have a kitchen with ample space to create, and plenty of area to host friends and family for delicious meals. We love our new home.

Bees & Honey

• We established a new apiary location at our old farmstead in Delton, surrounded by lakes and across the road from MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station’s Lux Arbor.
• For the first time ever, we had all honey bee colonies survive the winter – a very cold and snowy winter in Delton. With the bees overwintering strong, we were able to split and grow our apiary – almost doubling from the previous season. Ben’s dad, Dave, has started building us new hive components (boxes, bottoms, etc.) from scrap materials.
• Virginia cleared space for her very own barn lab, and started rearing honey bee queens. She’s so excited to start putting her entomology background to greater use with the goal of developing a healthy, hearty line of queens for our microclimate here in southwest Michigan.
• Such a joy to drive to Kentucky, home of Kelley Beekeeping operating since 1863, to pick-up VSH (Varroa Sensitive Hygiene) Pol-Line nucleus honey bee colonies that will add to the genetic diversity of Firefly’s Apiary over time. A critical and important step as we grow the apiary.
• Virginia hosted her first ‘mini’ bee workshop at the ‘Hive Pad’ in Delton with four attendees.
• Firefly Seasonal Honey Selection! We took one step closer to our goal of one day offering an ‘Honey CSA’ by offering a pre-order for the Firefly Seasonal Honey Selection. People could pre-order three or five varietal honeys collected across the season from our farm. It was a HUGE success!
• As of December 18, 2023, we sold out of honey for the 4th year in a row. We’re just blown away.
• Finally, given the incredible overwintering success at Virginia and Ben’s Delton home, we cleared way (on top one of the many remaining old barn foundations that we cleared of junk and debris since moving here) to overwinter ALL Firefly colonies at the ‘Hive Pad.’ So FAR SO GOOD! The bees are doing great during this mild El Nino winter.

Beans & Grains

• Ben continues to learn from Virginia’s mom and dad (Mattie & Archie) on the diversified, organic food grade beans and grains side of the operation. 2023 was especially exciting because in addition to the typical organic food grown around our family’s original ‘homeslice’ of land on Barryville Road, Ben broke ground at the Delton home to establish trial plots of new and old heirloom varietals. On the full acre Ben planted with two-row equipment, he harvested all the beans by hand. It was truly a labor of love for ‘very cool beans.’
• Besides growing beautiful, ornate bean varieties such as Jacob’s Cattel, Calypso, Tiger Eye, and Cranberry, he also planted a quarter acre of sunflowers for the bees and birds. The bees really appreciated having the sunflower nectar available during the early August dearth.
• Ben planted his first crop of organic soft red wheat, and helped Archie and Mattie prep, plant, cultivate, harvest, etcetera with all the other crops of organic black beans, soybeans, rye, spelt, hard red wheat, buckwheat, oats, barley, alfalfa, and corn.
• Aside from all the growing of the beans and grains, Ben has really dove fully into the baking of bread with the many different grains grown on our farm using different techniques (e.g. sourdough, sponge and dough, activated dough development). One day, we’ll get some of those recipes up on the Firefly Kitchen page!! 🙂

Cheers to 2024!

Phew! That feels like a lot. If you’ve stuck around this long reading all these updates – Thank you so much for your care and support! In many ways, this feels like a brain dump and our first time for real reflection in the last two years. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and get to work, and that has been the mode of operation – even more so than before. As we launch into 2024, refreshed from our recent staycation, we see the resources and conditions we’re navigating just a little more clearly – and we’re EXCITED, HOPEFUL for what’s to come. We know we need to balance the salty with the sweet, and that’s a lot easier said then done. The current season in life leaves us with these words:

Life is a recipe of flavors, both salty and sweet,

A delicate dance where opposites meet.

Savor the moments, let the contrasts unfold,

Balancing the salty and sweet, a story to be told.

In the bitterness, find resilience’s song,

Sweetness echoes when the days grow long.

Together they create a harmonious rhyme,

Life’s perfect blend, a taste so sublime.

Wishing you ALL the BEST and MANY blessings 2024 has to offer!!

LOVE, Ben + Virginia