Attended Great Farm Marketing and Social Media Class and Other Farm Projects

Always doing flower projects.  I had an order for 5 arrangements and a surprise how many blooming plants we still have available at the farm.

 Flowers in Cooler ready to be in arrangement.  Hard to believe it is the middle of November!!

I feel like I have been on the road for a week, so many activities and events.  I give classes all year round here at the farm, it was nice to ATTEND a class this week.  The class was put on by Buy Fresh/Buy Local, USDA and Northern California Regional Land Trust organizations in Orland.  The topics were Marketing Strategies and Social Media for the Local Food Economy.

Great speakers, great topics.  Being the "older" generation of social medias, I use them-i.e. this blog, Facebook and a little Instragram.  But to learn how these tools can enhance farming identification, marketing and ultimately-sales of our products was so interesting.  I just need to force myself to venture out and try the big one they talked about, Twitter.

I guess I had this idea Twitter was for the 13 year old kids saying "Was Up".  It appears from this workshop that many people have moved on from Facebook to Twitter for various reasons.  The word count is low so most talk is short. Group talks is an added benefit plus that instant, immediate information about what is happening within the group you belong to.

As one instructor Gina Sims stated, you pick your groups by your interests and if nothing worthwhile is happening, you move on to another group.  Time is so precious to all of us, information has to catch our eye and interest and the article or information provided has to be on point and worth reading by others.  Don't we all feel that way?

I read my emails, blogs, Instragram, Facebook early in morning before I start my day.  You scan through with videos and photos catching most of our attention lately instead of seeing long paragraphs of chatter, sort of like what I am doing now!!!

The point is, social media continues to play a key role in getting information about our farm, classes, baskets, produce, flowers out there.  If I post in one media, it may be missed in another media, such as Twitter or Instragram with a much greater audience.  Farmers basically would rather have dirt on their hands or on a tractor than to sit with their phone or tablet posting photos or chatting.  But it needs to be done, particularly if you are a smaller farmer with varied products to sell.

Frank has been putting up some really great lights around our yard, using old porcelain lights.  I found this one porcelain shade antiquing with a friend and I knew Frank would like it.

In two days, he took and old light down, built a new post, wired it, painted and attached to fence by his shop.

We had this other porcelain, larger shade and Frank re-wired it, attached to a metal post, put a finial on top and connected it to our night time landscaping lights by the front gate.  Oh and he installed the new LED lights to it so it only uses pennies to run.  

Only Frank would say how much he enjoyed these type of projects, he so loves to keep busy.  

At our last house in Manton, we had a 100 year old barn that Frank restored, beautiful 3 story wood structure.  I wish we had it here in Gridley.  Every day Frank says he wishes he had an old barn here at Windmill Farm or at least the $$$ to be able to build one like an old barn.  Boy could I have great classes in an old barn or have it for weddings, events??  That is what keeps us going, those dreams and wishes.

Until next time from Windmill Farm.