THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
We feel immense gratitude for our community in this challenging time. Your kind words and donations are humbling and we are so grateful. thank you.
In the last two years, Cate Farm has been hit by floods unlike the farm has seen for many years.
Last year's flood was truly devastating in its destruction to equipment, infrastructure, fields and crops, but we figured we could cover the cost for an event like that once every 100 years…
Fast forward to the exact date the following year, July 10, 2024, the farm experienced another devastating flood. This flood reached our high tunnel in the lower field, demolished an acre of burdock (that was looking beautiful and ready to harvest in the next couple of weeks) and left a huge mess to clean up: silt laden fields, trash, trees, and more trash.
Flint took over running the Cate Farm business when Richard and Sally retired in 2023. (They are still around and very helpful!) While he has been a key force in the business and operations for the last 8 years, experiencing floods of great consequence in his two first years of business has taken a toll on farm finances and morale. The lost burdock crop for two years in a row tallies $60,000 in lost sales.
Flint rallied last year and cleaned up a tremendous mess with a smile on his face (with reasonable exceptions). This year the weight of the water had a different effect: daunting and downright depressing.
Future Planning.
We are looking at what we need to do differently here at Cate Farm to better ensure resilience in dramatic weather events. We are so grateful that our seedling and tomato greenhouses are on high ground so that those parts of the business have been able to remain steady, and that our homes have been spared.
Thanks for your support and we’ll keep working hard to recover from this mess!