2024 Reflections
It’s been a while since I’ve sat down to write for this website’s journal or share through social media about what we have been up to. Last year was full of many moving parts, at all times, mostly in good ways - though other times were pretty overwhelming and heart breaking. With everything happening around the world, how can it not feel heavy? It takes more effort to recognize the good that’s around us, but it is around.
Some of our biggest wins were: Getting married with our amazing community right here with us (Aaron and I have been together for 11 years now <3), becoming an auntie, building a passive processing shelter with solar powered fans in the hoophouse, having the sweetest garden team, designing for so many lovely couples, summer hoophouse production being incredible, and feeling somewhat calm. This feeling of calm amidst all the chaos may be the thing I’m proud of the most. I feel incredible lucky that the lands we are on can hold so much internal growth and there is a community of thoughtful individuals to nurture play.
Some of our “could be better for next year” are: better dried floral storage, consistent studio set-up, more opportunities to swim in the lakes/ocean and film photo documentation.
We will be starting our 5th year of business this Spring, which is a notable milestone. I haven’t given up on this crazy project yet, and every year I fine tune it from a business perspective with sustainability at the root of all our decision making. What’s incredible to me about this project is that it creates so much hope and I get to witness so many loving, tender moments. There is a hummingbird that visits our greenhouse from Spring to Fall and incredible little creatures that fall asleep on our flowers. Just really good, heart melting moments.
In 2025 we will continue focusing on event floral design, the online floral shop and our local Comox Valley Farmer’s Market as a 5 person team (I will share more about this later). It’s another trial system entirely based on the talents of each individual, but fingers crossed that more alignment clicks into place.
Film photo experiment
My natural tendency for photography has become snapping lots of quick photos on my phone, but I made a bit of an effort to document what’s happening around me through film photos last year (Thank you Erin K for the camera!). I still feel more confident with a Nikon dlsr or an Iphone, but the excitement of seeing developed film photos makes it worthwhile. See below for some film documentation of our growing and designing from Jan - Dec 2024.
