Willowbrook Harvest 2024

In the style of every blog post I write; here’s our Harvest 2024 post right as we are gearing up for Harvest 2025.

I try very hard to document some of our goings on so I can look back and see how far the farm has come along. This year (2024) started off looking great and then took a super strong turn into poop on poop (if you know you know).

We got through harvesting just in the nick of time with some amazing helpers and we pivoted hard, yet were able to still get 1,000 willow cuttings in the ground for a grand total of 10,000.

We’ve had set backs and challenges each year since we’ve been here but 2024 will take the cake as the year that nearly broke me. Writing this still in 2024 I have to say I’m ready to be done with it and move on with life. We’ve faced so many disappointments this year and I’m not quite sure how long it will take to really get over them all. To be honest it’s all left me feeling hurt, sad, and defeated but I’m trying my best to rally and get ready to embrace the unknown ahead (because honestly I don’t have a choice in the matter).

Boy, I look at this picture and think that girl who took it had no frickin clue what was about to crash into her. She thought her biggest concerns were voles and deer. Little did she know that everyone in her life was about to derail it completely.

This last year was really the first time that I felt like we legit had our farm and plan together. We were working so hard to really start the process of making our home and life here by building a yurt. People had other ideas, and now that dream has been, currently completely decimated. I know I’ll never be able to give it up and I’ll always be trying to get back to it, but for now I have to give up the dream and do what needs to be done.

The willows all looked amazing. It was hard not to feel like I had my shit together as we slowly worked our way through harvesting. I sort as I go which might be a tactic that I need to give up for the sake of just getting everything cut as soon as possible.

I had a few orders for some larger living rods for fences and I was able to successfully install my first fence upon request from my Aunt and Uncle. How much fun!!! And I should really find the pictures, but I can say it is definitely something I want to do more of in the future along with harlequin trees and play huts. There’s never enough time for everything and as much as I love the seasonal nature of this work I’m noticing it’s giving me a bit of anxiety once the time comes for certain tasks to be done. Cuttings and harvest are on deck and I’m already worried about it all.

All my boys helped so much, volunteering non-the-less. To be honest I just think little boys like that I’m putting small weapons of destruction in their hands and letting them cut down tiny trees. Some varieties like Packing Twine produce so many on each stool. We counted 48 on one of the biggest ones. The amount of sticks we have to wrangle, getting larger and larger by the year is extremely exciting but also nerve-wracking since I’m already pressed for time. Because of this I’m going to start offering some work trade deals for help with harvesting. An email list is growing and I managed to officially send out my first newsletter today. I’ve always welcomed change ya’ll but I’m currently fighting this next out-of-box list of things happening in our lives. I know the feeling of being uncomfortable, pushing out of your zone, and I know I have to embrace feeling like crap for the next couple of months to get to the better things ahead.

I desperately want to start offering dried willow to makers but the crazy and not sad reality is that I teach so much and my classes are so full that I can’t even begin to offer dried willow because otherwise I’d have to cancel my classes. Such a horrible problem to have (can you hear the sarcasm) I know!

All jokes aside, the only way this grows from here is by getting me more time on the farm. I’m trying as hard as I can to make that a reality, but you guys, this is a hard ledge to jump off of with the absolute knowledge that there is NO safety net. It’s going to happen one day as I’m getting pushed further and further. I know there will come a day I’ll let go out of sheer hatred for something and get busy proving everyone wrong.

I really want to supply everyone who asks with willow, but the hard truth is that I just might not be able to for a few years. We have a ginormous demand in this area and not enough growers to sustain all the amazing teachers and makers doing their thing right now. I knew growing willow was super important to sustain what I needed, and it hurts not to be able to support absolutely everyone. And geeze, all the people that can’t get into my classes. I was in your shoes; anxiety filled until I landed a spot in a class. There’s a strong desire from many to break out of what is “normal” and do something amazing. Basketry calls to us even before we set our hands to making the first one. I understand this burning desire to learn this beautiful craft that has been most recently romanticized into the consciousness of so many. Making a basket is a beautiful thing, but what’s not often shown is the extreme amount of work that goes on behind the beautiful scenes of makers sweetly cutting sticks and weaving them into a beautiful basket effortlessly in a clean studio. This is a messy business and so much hard work it physically hurts. I tell you there are days when I truly wonder how I’ll learn to manage all the feelings around this craft and lifestyle. I’ve yet to fully embrace it all, only dipping into it occasionally when given the chance. I can tell you that the sacrifice is great, and sometimes not always one I wish to make. I desire to have more time to be “normal” and spend a weekend on the couch with the ones I love. Instead, we are working on top of working to make this all into a reality where we get to live life the way we want to live it. I’m not anywhere near giving up, and also not sure where my thoughts on this rant were leading. Can you feel the pressure too? So much is happening right now, between the weather, politics, and the looming holidays. Be kind to one another because we are all navigating these crazy changes. Definitely, come cut willow with me this winter and we’ll all enjoy some willow therapy.

Gosh I learned a lot from selling cuttings this year. I learned its super fun and stressful and perhaps I should be putting a limitation on a minimum order. Part of me wants to keep it as many as you like because it sets me aside from the now numerous amounts of people selling willow cuttings.

I had such a wonderful time with the Pink Pussy Willows this year. It really made me appreciate and want more of the ornamental varieties so I placed an order to plant a bunch this year. I still estimate that I have the room to double what I have now, and then I’ll really be over my head and probably twitching a bit from doing nothing but sorting sticks.

I’ve really come to love and appreciate the winter time here. A Northerner through and through, I actually prefer the cold and we do get a great length of it here. I look at these images from last year and I honestly don’t know how we did it all. I thought cuttings and harvest would never end.

I was super lucky to have two very good friends come out and help to get through the last bit. Along with a bunch of lovely people that came to pick up their orders I quickly realized how much I love sharing this space. It’s why, as our lives have changed, I’ve moved my thoughts to really turning this farm into a school. I want to share this space more often and give makers a more hands on experience when it comes to planting, harvesting, sorting and just seriously seeing what basketry willows look like. I can’t tell you how many people come into my classes thinking we are using branches from a weeping willow tree. I don’t blame them because I thought the same myself long ago.

These ladies were absolutely amazing and I don’t know what I would have done without them!

Cuttings, cuttings, cuttings…that’s what’s coming next and I do hesitate to be excited because it’s so much work. But standing in my barn next to a warm woodstove with cider simmering away and snowflakes at my door, I think that it may be exactly what I need right now.

I remember my thoughts taking this picture below as well. It really was the moment that I was missing everyone that had come by the day before and I knew my mind was shifting; Willowbrook would be bound to become a place to share with people I love, and less the sanctuary I used to escape the world.

Be well and weave more!