Holy Early Harvest, Batman!
What will 42 days of no rain in September and October give you? Our earliest harvest on record! We have finished both our grain and grape harvest! When we first moved to the farm, William always told me that if we were done by Thanksgiving that was a good year, so the fact that we finished just a few days into November is quite amazing. Unfortunately, the long period of no rain dampened (pun 
intended) the potential of our grain crops, our grape harvest was great! With a prosperous grape harvest comes many long days of William working from 6am until 10pm crushing and pressing grapes. This year, our grape harvest was more than we have tank space for, so we have sold some grapes to other wineries, given some to the food bank and even contracted to have some of our Chambourcin grapes made into jam! Stay tuned for more information on our jam!!
The farm, crush pad and tank room are always busy this time of year, but this year has been exceptionally demanding. Shout out to everyone that works here at Lazy Day Farms and all of their spouses! Make no mistake, farming is a whole family lifestyle. When harvest kicks into gear it requires a ton of hours from everyone on the farm and with this year’s dry weather every day was a great day to “make hay while the sun shines”. That meant there were no breaks for anyone. So, while all our people here put in a ton of hours, their family members also did by taking on more of the family responsibilities. I know I really felt it this year with our son, Stephen, being away at bootcamp. No Stephen meant no extra driver for us. After having the luxury of a year with him running errands for me and taking his sister to school, it was back to the grind for me this fall. However, the sprint to the finish line left us a nice bit of time to get ready for the holidays and Stephen coming home from bootcamp!!
Cheers!
-Jennifer Layton
