One Year Ago...

One year ago today I was facing the unthinkable. You see, I had a flock of sheep and goats that were incredibly dear to me but I just couldn't afford to keep them anymore. 

My flock was producing beautiful fleeces, but the high cost of processing the wool and mohair into yarn meant we barely broke even selling our yarn. Hay was selling for $10 a bale and gas prices were skyrocketing. I was working two jobs- as the news director at a radio station and the membership director at the MV Chamber of Commerce- just to pay my feed store bills. I was broke, exhausted and so terribly sad when I thought about selling my flock.

And then, one year ago today, I woke up with an idea. I would start a Yarn CSA and sell shares in my flock's yarn harvest. Maybe, just maybe, I could get 10 or 20 people to invest. And maybe that would buy me enough time to figure something else out.

One year ago this weekend, I opened my etsy store and listed our very first CSA shares for sale. 

And then a miracle happened. 

Within six months we had sold 100 shares in our Spring 08 harvest. I quit one job. Our farm was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and I got 185 emails in one day.  A shareholder started a CSA fan club for us on ravelry and almost 300 people joined. We had our first Fiber Festival and more than 300 people came. I quit my other job. We more than tripled the size of our flock. The Fall 08 shares sold out even faster than Spring 08 shares did and people started asking for Spring 09 shares. Other farms started contacting me for help setting up their own Fiber CSAs. We were featured in a couple of magazines articles, and then a couple more. We got a book contract. We are being featured on the cover of a magazine next year. We raised $10,000 in ten days to help my Uncle when he became paralyzed after falling from a tree. And, most exciting, we shipped out the first yarn to our shareholders, and you all were happy with it.

I have to tell you that all of this feels a bit like a dream. I have never worked harder in my whole life than I did this past year and I have never been happier. I've made some life-long friendships. I found out that people will help you if you ask them.

And it's all because of all of you. There just aren't words to thank you for all of this so I will just say thank you and trust you will know how deeply grateful I am.

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the CSA we are having a huge sale in our etsy store. Oh, and the 2009 Calendars are finally here! They are so beautiful, even nicer than we had hoped and I know you'll love them.