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Artemisia Farm & Vineyard Newsletter

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by Artemisia Farm & Vineyard

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A backstage pass to all things Artemisia. From what’s happening on the farm, to the inner workings of our garage-winery, we're sharing what we're doing, thinking, cooking, and drinking. <br/><br/><a href="https://artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com</a>

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Recent Episodes

Episode thumbnail for July Newsletter: Mathematics and Spiritual Gasoline

July 20, 2026

July Newsletter: Mathematics and Spiritual Gasoline

<p>You can listen to the podcast by clicking the playback above. You can also listen for free on Spotify or by adding our Substack podcast to your RSS feed. </p><p>Hey folks,</p><p>This month’s newsletter is about the creation of something very special…our first dry vermouth. Dry vermouth has been a moving target for years. With a little inspiration and a lot of help from our friends, we’ve found it. A little late but not quite overdue. Read on to learn how. </p><p></p><p>A Lot of Dandelions </p><p></p><p>“I want it dry!” I exclaim. </p><p>It is eight o’clock in the morning. I’m standing barefoot in our farm kitchen in a gray waffle bathrobe. I’m on my second cup of tea and I am very, very awake. To my left, Andrew chokes on his coffee. He sets the mug down on the kitchen counter with a little clink. This is not the invitation he expected to receive first thing in the morning. “I want it totally and completely dry,” I continue, oblivious. </p><p>I can see Andrew’s cogs turning, him wondering what totally dry thing I’m asking for. He looks over at me only to find me talking to the ceiling, hands gesticulating wildly. A faint whisper of terror passes over his face. “Yes,” I repeat. “Totally dry and full of dandelions.”“My love,” Andrew says with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about but I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”“A dry vermouth!” I say, turning my attention to him. “Totally unsweetened. Based on wild dandelion blossoms rather than dried leaves.” </p><p>I can see it in my mind. No one’s done this before. </p><p>Andrew visibly relaxes and takes a reassuring sip of his coffee. “That’s a lot of dandelions,” he says, ever the pragmatist. “Yes, yes.” I wave him away with my hand. “We can deal with that when we get there. Think of the sales potential!”Andrew pulls off his glasses and presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. This is the remark that always elicits low-key alarm bells. When sales potential comes out, what remains of my rationality quickly evaporates.“I agree about the sales potential. Unsure about the blossoms,” he says. “But, I like the idea overall. Try it. See what you can do. We’ll see if it works.”</p><p>Never tell me to try it. Andrew should know that by now. Because I will try it. Consequences be damned. </p><p>And I do. I spend the next few months collecting wild dandelions, blossom by blossom, from anywhere I can find them: the garden beds, the backyard, the vineyard, and then some. I enlist friends to help me in my quest. We comb the hills for dandelions, filling gallon Ziploc bags to the brim. Anything small and yellow becomes a target. I decimate a swath of Appalachian dandelion lineages in a matter of weeks.</p><p>Then, I infuse them into anything remotely alcoholic: grape brandy, apple brandy, high-proof grape distillates, Vidal wine, fortified Vidal wine, and endless combinations of the above. I rebuild my botanical extract library with botanicals of a certain energetic quality: lithe but powerful, savory but weightless, playfully rude but unerringly verbose. Home-grown wormwood and Greek oregano. Common thyme and German chamomile. A kiss of apricot for that certain je ne sais quoi.</p><p>I build my prototype in the galley of our kitchen bar. The base is a blossom-infused wine, shouldered with aromatic and bitter tinctures. I titrate the latter with a tiny glass pipette, working like a mad perfumist into the late hours of the night. A painstaking procedure, but it’s the only way I know how to do it. </p><p>Eventually, after many false starts and countless trials shoved into Andrew’s complicit hands, I get it. </p><p>I sit Andrew down at our kitchen table and present the mason jar of my final draft. </p><p>“I’m going for Basque,” I say. “Basquey. Basque-adjacent. I mean, not entirely Basque, but taking some notes.” What the actual hell am I saying? </p><p>Andrew ignores my frenetic explanation and takes a sip. Swishes it in his mouth. Does not spit it into the supplied second mason jar-turned-spit bucket. He sighs.</p><p>“Oh,” he murmurs. “This is very pretty,” he says. “Very, very pretty.”</p><p>“Can you help me scale it?” I ask. Andrew and I have a reciprocal winemaking relationship. I bring raw creativity. He structures it into something replicable with meticulous spreadsheets. Together, through mathematics and spiritual gasoline, we create beautiful things. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I absolutely can.”</p><p>I bow my head. Clasp my hands together. Thank him. At the end of a making, when the creative spell subsides, and we step away from whatever storm took us there, giving thanks is all that’s left. </p><p>My storm is over. Now, it’s Andrew’s turn to create. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In the Basque Style </p><p></p><p>And what is a Basque-style vermouth, you ask? </p><p>The Basque Country (also known as País Vasco or Euskadi) spans part of Spain’s Northern coast along the Bay of Biscay and the western Pyrenees mountains. The Basque people are one of Spain’s few surviving indigenous groups, and the region continues today with semi-autonomous governance. </p><p>Basque vermouth draws heavily from the foodways of Northern Spain. It’s traditionally made with a base of native Basque grapes (Hondarrabi Zuri, most commonly) and infused with aromatic herbs. Of these, knapweed, wormwood, dittany, gentian, thyme, rosemary, and citrus are all local to the region. </p><p>The style is aggressively savory. Unabashedly herbal. Intensely aromatic. Ours keeps this template, but makes it fuller, rounder, more floral. A foundation of Vidal adds brawn and breadth, while the fresh dandelion blossoms add a bitter, satiny backdrop. It smells like spring, and tastes like abundance, and cuts like the gentlest kiss of night, and finishes with all the sunshine and verve of an apricot plucked freshly from the tree. </p><p>It’s entirely Appalachian. Sultry and spry. Sharpened and soft. Dark and light. A place and a thing somewhere in the gray space between opposites. </p><p>The vermouth and I have that much in common. Naturally. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A Name that Makes No Claims </p><p>Months later, I’m on the phone in our shared office, fighting with the TTB (the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau). I put down my phone and sigh. “They won’t let me call it Dandelion Dry Vermouth,” I say to Andrew.“What?” He spins around in his chair. The neat stacks of paperwork on his office desk flutter dangerously.“They say I can’t use both ‘Dandelion’ and ‘Dry’ to describe the vermouth on the front of the label.”“But that’s what it is!” He says, irritation slipping through his otherwise calm demeanor.“I know,” I sigh. “But apparently, there can be only one descriptor, and it has to be either ‘Dry’ or ‘Dandelion.’ We can’t have both.”“Why?” </p><p>Why indeed.“I have no idea!” I drag my hands over my face. Nothing frustrates me more than a creative process interrupted by outdated bureaucracy.“Okay, what about Lion’s Tooth?” Andrew says. Lion’s Tooth is the folk name for dandelion, and our backup if the first submission doesn’t make it through the approval process. It’s not a common name. It’s the kind of esoteric information an herbalist might have, but not a TTB nine-to-fiver. We try it. Send in a revised electronic copy of the label with Lion’s Tooth Dry Vermouth printed at the base.Within an hour, the agent assigned to our submission spits back a rejection. They know the folk name. And it won’t fly. Somewhere along the line, the TTB label approval team raised their hiring standards. “Ah, f**k,” I mutter under my breath. Across the room, Andrew sighs. I don’t need to explain a thing.We discuss. Dry Vermouth communicates too little. Dandelion Vermouth suggests something sweet (or at least off-dry), and that wouldn’t be true to form. We need a name that makes no claims. A name that is purely energetic, can precede Dry without legally competing with it. After brainstorming an obscenely long list of potentials, we arrive. Its name will be Aura. </p><p>Aura Dry Vermouth.Aura, because there’s something intangible about this vermouth. Something that speaks but barely touches. Shrouds but does not oppress. It shifts the energy of the room in a way that no one can quite understand or pinpoint. It glows, glows like the first drop of sun on the horizon. Glows like the first wink of a star at dusk. Glows the way the late summer light hangs over the body of a steel-flat lake, the way a July breeze tucks itself around you like the barest brush of a kiss. That kind of glow.This is Aura. Our first dry vermouth. I’ve never made anything like this before, and I’m holding the new shape of it in my hands like an errant comet that I’ve somehow managed to capture in its route across the night. </p><p>I’m not sure where it came from, but here it is.At the time of this writing, Aura is resting in bottle, recovering itself after the chaos of the bottling line. We’ll release it into the wild in a few weeks. </p><p>This initial release is a pilot, a little toe into shallow water. If you’d like to reserve a bottle of this special creature, you can <a target="_blank" href="https://shop.artemisia.farm/products/aura-dry-vermouth-2025">pre-order one on our website</a>. You won’t be disappointed. I promise. </p><p></p><p>Thanks for reading,</p><p></p><p>Kelly </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Feedback</strong></p><p>Community is built when we are in conversation with each other. Was there something you loved in this month’s newsletter? Or hated? Do you have a question about something we said, or a response to us?</p><p>We want to hear from you! Comment using the button below or email us at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:contact@artemisia.farm?subject=Newsletter%20feedback">contact@artemisia.farm</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):</p><p>https://uppbeat.io/t/arnito/avant-la-pluie</p><p>License code: RHIKKASKD1WFMM4W</p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com</a>

Episode thumbnail for The Problem with Glass

March 20, 2026

The Problem with Glass

<p>You can listen to the podcast by clicking the playback above. You can also listen for free on Spotify or by adding our Substack podcast to your rss feed. </p><p>Hey folks,</p><p>This month’s newsletter explores the tension between sustainability and marketability. It turns over a question that we’ve long struggled with: what to do about the weight of our glass bottles? </p><p>How can we make a sustainable product within the parameters of common market aesthetics? Is it possible to produce a sustainable bottle of vermouth? What kind of sustainability are we actually selling?</p><p>These questions and more. Read on to hear them.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Should we Put It in a Box? </p><p>Andrew and I are standing on the long side of our little kitchen table. On the other, there are three members of our wine distribution team, here to tour the winery and sample our wares. Most wineries would use their tasting room or a nice portico for such a visit, but we have neither. It’s either the kitchen, the winery (which is technically a garage stuffed to the gills with wine tanks), or I suppose the field where we grow our botanicals (as an obligatory third option). </p><p>I chose the kitchen to be our all-purpose business and entertainment center. We’ll have a cursory visit to the winery later, where we can relish in its rusticity for exactly the appropriate amount of time.</p><p>Visits from distributors to wineries are standard in this industry. It’s a way for the distributor to more deeply learn a winery’s story, taste the upcoming vintage, or visit library bottlings (if available). In a word, it shows goodwill. This is just one of many ways in which distributors and winemakers build trust with each other: an essential thing in a sometimes volatile industry.</p><p>There are two men, one tall, one average, and one short woman. The three of them listen with an acute, receptive intent that I know very well. Before I made vermouth, I worked in sales with a different distributor, and pouring samples for prospective buyers was part of my pitch. I met with restaurant sommeliers, wine shop owners, boutique foodstuff purchasers… you name it.</p><p>Whether winery-distributor or distributor-purchaser, both dynamics are an exercise in trust. A tasting doesn’t just showcase the flavor profile of the wine. It’s an atmosphere of human connection. A handshake, if you will. I’ve done this thousands of times. The difference, in this case, is that it was always someone else’s wine, someone else’s story. Now, the wine is my own. We are the story. </p><p>Andrew stands at my side as I pour small sips of plum vermouth into their waiting glasses. The bottle is heavy enough that I have to pour it with both hands, a minor industry faux pas. There’s about a half-inch of solid glass at its base. It’s functionally useless but aesthetically indicating. High-end products have more glass. That’s what the market dictates. That’s what the consumer understands. More glass means better flavor, higher prestige… all the trappings and associations with value that are inexorably woven into our cultural identity. </p><p>I think it’s silly. But it does make an impression.</p><p>The distribution team swirls, smells, holds their glasses to the light. I dictate the barest synopsis of last year’s vintage. Then I wait. If I learned anything selling wine, it’s that the open space of silence allows for far more discovery than an overabundance of verbiage. Learning how to wait was the hardest part of the job. I still don’t like it.</p><p>A portfolio of my work stands in a neat line on the table between us, a rainbow of brightly colored aperitifs. I designed the inside, Andrew drafted the labels. In the slanting light of our kitchen window, they glow like fae potions from another time. </p><p>We work our way down the line, visiting each bottle in turn. Pour, speak, wait, repeat. All the while, I find myself chewing on a question, but I just can’t bring myself to ask it. Vulnerability is a tricky thing in this industry. It’s a hyper-competitive, highly social arena populated almost exclusively by empaths. Reveal too much, and you might find yourself ostracized.</p><p>But… I can’t help myself.</p><p>I take a slow breath as I cork the last bottle, angling it towards our guests. </p><p>“What do you think about a lower-glass bottle shape? There’s a lot of unused glass here,” I say, tapping my finger against the heavy glass foot. “We’re considering the idea of a more eco-friendly bottle.” </p><p>The tall man shrugs and nods at the same time, betraying multiple, conflicting answers. “We always support a more sustainable direction,” he begins, “but… these look nice.” At this, he gestures to my vermouth. “The heavy bottle imparts a certain sense of value.”</p><p>I give my own nod. The bottles do look nice, but they come with a cost. Their price tag is not insignificant, but more importantly, they’re expensive ecologically. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The Price of Beauty</p><p>More than half of an average winery’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the shipping and manufacture of glass bottles. Producing glass bottles is a heat-intensive process, generating around 86 million metric tons of CO₂ annually worldwide. </p><p>Between production, packaging, and transport, glass packaging alone comprises 30–50% of the wine industry’s total carbon footprint. An average bottle weighs 500–600 grams, while premium bottles can reach nearly two pounds. Multiply that by a few million, and you can imagine the fuel required just to get it from the factory to our winery. </p><p>The glass itself is (theoretically) infinitely recyclable, but therein lies a second problem. The U.S. population recycles only about 33% of glass produced, either through lack of intention or improper sorting. That translates into billions of wine bottles lost to landfills each year. </p><p>There is a very big problem with glass. </p><p>…but this is all ancillary to the moment. Well, it isn’t, but it feels far enough away not to collapse under. We wrap up the tasting, shake hands, say our farewells. Andrew and I began tidying up the glassware and bottles.</p><p>The air feels deflated, like a bow string undone. I can guess why. Sustainability has its guardrails. I find myself thinking of a conversation I had with a winemaker I apprenticed with many years ago in rural New Hampshire. He told me that “everything you do in this life will be a sale.” I hated the sentiment at the time. Now… I’m not so sure that I disagree. </p><p>I lean back against the kitchen table, bracing myself on the palms of my hands. “Do you think we could put our vermouth in boxes?” I want to swallow the question back; it sounds so definitively unsellable.</p><p>Andrew is elbow-deep in suds, washing the glassware from the tasting. He doesn’t respond right away, but unconsciously starts shaking his head.</p><p>“You know…” I continue aimlessly, “Those sustainable wine boxes that are super light to ship and fully recyclable? They even make them in bottle shapes.” I dangle that last detail like it somehow makes this idea more digestible. Ex-sales indeed. </p><p>Andrew sighs. “I mean…” he trails off. The ridiculousness of my suggestion is so obvious that he’s at a loss for words. He sighs again. “No one would buy it. I like the idea. Of course, I want us to use less glass. Of course, I want to reduce the fuel and materials it takes to make our bottles, to make our work better for the planet… but, no one would buy it.” Suds fly as he gestures in frustration. “If people don’t buy it, we don’t stay in business.”</p><p>I know he’s right. The bottles have to look good, in the most classical sense of the word. The sales part of me understands this. But, the rest of me doesn’t want to. If the environment forever comes second to marketability, then we’ve already lost this game. The very word “sustainability” can’t be trusted. There’s no legal definition, and we need it that way just to make ends meet. Sustainability means “you’ll have to trust that we’re doing the best that we can.”</p><p>But surely, you say, there must be visually appealing, sustainable glass bottles? There certainly are… and they cost a fortune. Even if (if!) we could afford the per-bottle price, the purchase minimums are prohibitively high: many pallets more than we could ever need or store. It’s not approachable on a small scale like ours. </p><p>In the end, Andrew and I will find a compromise on the bottle: still glass, still conventional, but with less of a foot at its base and thinner walls. An airy silhouette with a lighter ecological footprint that maintains all the aesthetic principles of proper modern marketing. A happy ending, for all intents and purposes. </p><p>Our first product to use the lower glass bottle is our plum vermouth: Solstice. This vintage is quite delayed, but it’s finally back, with a second (very large!) bottling en route this summer. </p><p>There will be no boxed vermouth or compressed cellulose bottles. No recycled plastic pull tabs or aluminum screw caps. </p><p>It will be glass, because glass is nice and feels old, and real, and substantial, and even these lighter bottles have a psychological weight that somehow tethers their purchaser to another (possibly imaginary) time in which everything mundane felt true and whole. </p><p>A time that, in a word, felt safe. </p><p>This is a story about glass, but it’s also a story about what sustainability really means. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Simple and Tangible</p><p>You might say that sustainability in sales is less ecological and more psychological. The target is the customer’s value system. The message: your beliefs are correct, and because they are correct, you are safe within the social hierarchy. For only a few rare people is true ecological sustainability a mean driver of purchasing habits. </p><p>But, is that so bad? Is marketing psychological safety inherently disingenuous? Is its pursuit unjustified? </p><p>I don’t know. I just make wine. </p><p>What I do know is if that bucolic past did exist, where life was uncomplicated and tangible in a way that didn’t feel like a crumpled old newspaper, I want people to know a piece of that. We have our glass-bottled vermouth and our old-time waxed vegetable boxes, and these notes that I keep writing to whoever will read them… all smatterings of palpability in what feels to me like a humanity with its heart hollowed out and dropped somewhere forgettable. </p><p>There’s a problem with glass. More glass isn’t going to fix it. Less isn’t going to, either. What’s inside the glass is almost inconsequential. Or, is it everything entirely? </p><p>The problem with glass is that its psychological imprint isn’t deep enough. Like all good branding, it communicates something essential, but the message is incomplete. It’s too brief, a sentence, half-finished. It feels like safety and promise, and then culture steps in to fill in the gaps with how nice it is. </p><p>Maybe if there are enough bottles, they’ll fill in the gaps themselves, crowd out culture’s insistent message to accumulate, dominate. Maybe a sufficient pockmarking of genuine beauty will tip the scales, and we can meet where unsullied “sales” was always meant to help us meet: as one and another, sharing something lifegiving in a primeval and fathomless world. </p><p>Maybe with enough glass, we can finally go there together. When we arrive, we’ll keep the glass or leave it. It will be both beautiful and incidental. Then, the real conversation will begin. </p><p>…and with that, I’ll say: our vermouth drops soon. I hope you like the bottles.</p><p></p><p>Until next time,</p><p>Kelly</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Feedback</strong></p><p>Community is built when we are in conversation with each other. Was there something you loved in this month’s newsletter? Or hated? Do you have a question about something we said, or a response to us?</p><p>We want to hear from you! Comment using the button below or email us at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:contact@artemisia.farm?subject=Newsletter%20feedback">contact@artemisia.farm</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):</p><p>https://uppbeat.io/t/arnito/avant-la-pluie</p><p>License code: TEMJB2COJDVXB9ND</p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com</a>

Episode thumbnail for February Newsletter: What is Essential?

February 10, 2026

February Newsletter: What is Essential?

<p>You can listen to the podcast by clicking the playback above. You can also listen for free on Spotify or by adding our Substack podcast to your rss feed.</p><p>It’s been a while since our last update. Andrew and I caught a particularly bad bug this winter, and the newsletter has suffered for it. This post is about that bug, and the silver lining it had.</p><p></p><p></p><p>A Very Bad Bug</p><p></p><p>In late December, Andrew and I caught this winter’s super flu at a family holiday party. There were lots of little children with lots of toddler-grade touchy-sneezy energy stumbling around. We washed our hands and slathered them with sanitizer between brushes with each potential patient zero, but it was all for naught. In ways unseen, infection was inevitable.</p><p>I developed a cough that eventually became so severe that it withered my voice down to a rasp. It would remain as such for the next two weeks. Andrew followed suit, although in true resilient form, he recovered much more quickly than I did. This is why I call him my better half. He’s just built better.</p><p>Most curiously, losing my voice put a stop to my writing. As above, so below: I was wordless in all directions. A monologuing well, gone dry. I went quiet, and my internal world went quiet with me. There was simply nothing to say.</p><p>I think of myself as a words person, and this sudden mutism was at odds with how I experience the world. I had to be selective about what I needed to communicate because words were, quite literally, painful (and at the rate I was running through cough drops, getting expensive.)</p><p>Extraneous words were a strain, so I accommodated my injury the way one does when they stub their toe or strain their knee: I changed my gait. I spoke only when necessary, augmenting with expressive but often confusing hand gestures, lots of pointing, and the occasional typed iPhone missive.</p><p>In my unscheduled retreat into monastic silence, I was loosed from the pull of social media, a place where I (in better moments) use short-form to share business updates and (in less ideal times) share my own indulgent earmarks with the unsuspecting world. Instead of all that, I refocused inward. I put my need to communicate on unpaid leave and, in my quieted, fluey haze, I started to really listen.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>On Listening</p><p></p><p>I listened.</p><p>I listened to the creaking frame of our old cottage, to its groaning pipes and squeaky hinges. I listened to the sparrows and wrens at the feeder outside our kitchen window. I listened to Andrew in work and life with a stillness and presence unmuddled by my own need to speak. I listened to the sound of life gently ebbing around me in its soft, meandering tide.</p><p>Then, I listened to the digital world, to emails pinging the iPhone in my back pocket, to the explosive reels and photo carousels of social media, to my jaunty, always-overflowing to-do list app. It was loud.</p><p>When my words quieted, my mind quieted. With my mind quieted, I could better hear just how loud modernity can be.</p><p>At the time of this writing, I now have my voice back. In some ways, my old gait is back, too. I have too much screen time. I interrupt and interject more than Andrew probably likes. I sometimes forget about the sparrows at the feeder, or the grumbling of our old cottage’s bones. I have things to do. Very important things.</p><p>But something has shifted. There’s this nagging question that won’t go away. What words are worth saying? What ideas are worth communicating? What is essential and what is superfluous?</p><p>These questions aren’t just about words.</p><p>Reader, have you read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince? It’s one of my favorite books. I have it in both English and in French. At one point in the story, a tamed fox tells the protagonist, a young prince, “L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux,” or “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” When I lost my voice, I was unceremoniously reacquainted with the essential: that soft clockwork of the heart that we all share.</p><p>This business that Andrew and I are building began with the search for a gentle and peaceful life. Many years later, it has become something broader and more encompassing. Just before the flu propelled me into existential reverie, we received a barrage of holiday cards and emails from our CSA members. There was so much gratitude. Short notes. Long ones. Little gifts. Holiday treats. Sometimes, just a wave, a nod, or a smile.</p><p>We have delivered hundreds (maybe thousands at this point) of vegetable boxes. Our CSA members have prepared innumerable meals with our produce. Untold numbers of leftovers have been repurposed for breakfast, hastily packed for lunch, or reheated for a second go at dinner. Our weekly recipes, recreated in homes throughout Virginia and the District, improvised and improved, have slowly taught people how to eat seasonally.</p><p>In countless small ways, our humble CSA has done good work in this community. It’s perhaps the best kind of work anyone can do: we’ve made life just a little bit better. We found our gentle and peaceful lifeway, and we’ve helped others to find it as well.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fate Intervenes</p><p></p><p>It’s taken me two months to pen the loss of my voice and the perspective that loss gave me. Two months to process how I’ve reintegrated into the louder world.</p><p>Maybe this newsletter is just the fallout of billions of flu virions inflaming my brain. Humans have a long history of mind-altering experiences unveiling philosophical truths. I want to believe that it was a natural and convenient nudge back in the right direction. In December, I caught the flu. A few weeks later, I remembered how to be a better person. Fate intervenes in its own way.</p><p>Losing my voice helped me remember that life-building isn’t just big ideas and grandstand posturing. It’s in the small things: how we talk, how we love, how we eat, how we work, and how we rest. These are the essentials of life. You won’t find them on a screen or in your inbox.</p><p>What happens from here? Like our CSA, our pace of life is seasonal. Our story continues from winter to spring: wine bottling on the near horizon, planting schematics for new berry plots and herb beds, a pale vermouth and native fruit aperitif in the works, a vineyard to prune before the spring thaw, and of course, our step-by-step journey to remember how to live peacefully, together.</p><p>I’ll be back with my words to share it all with you.</p><p></p><p>Until then,</p><p>Kelly</p><p></p><p></p><p>P.S.</p><p>Our CSA runs year-round. If you want to learn more about it, check out our <a target="_blank" href="https://shop.artemisia.farm/collections/memberships">website</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Feedback</strong></p><p>Community is built when we are in conversation with each other. Was there something you loved in this month’s newsletter? Or hated? Do you have a question about something we said, or a response to us?</p><p>We want to hear from you! Comment using the button below or email us at contact@artemisia.farm.</p><p>Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):</p><p>https://uppbeat.io/t/arnito/avant-la-pluie</p><p>License code: FX75BLUZXKLTLLFU</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">artemisiafarmandvineyard.substack.com</a>

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