2007 Flood

Greetings Friends of Featherstone Farm~

Apologies for the late date of this update. The last weeks have been a whirlwind, as you can imagine. We wanted to get a good sense of where we stand on all crops before posting. Because we have six separate field areas, separated by miles, some behind National Guard roadblocks, it took more than a week to get this sense.

The impact of the August 17-19 storm was sudden and severe. Our machine shop was transformed into a near superfund cleanup site and several fields were completely bulldozed by floodwaters. As many as 20 acres of crops will be completely written off. Combined with damage from the previous 2 weeks’ rains, the loss of produce is immense. We can only hope that the weather holds and fall crops are not further damaged.

On the whole, the farm has weathered the storm as well as could be expected. No homes and few pieces of equipment were damaged. Learning from the experience of previous wet years, we had spread most crops around several sites with drier conditions. With the help of friends and neighbors, we were able to restore generator power within hours of the floodwaters’ retreat, protecting crops in the cooler that we were able to ship for local wholesale on the Tuesday after the flood. We are all unbelievably grateful for all the expressions of sympathy and support we have received from far and wide.

We have had to let go over half of our workers ~ some would have been leaving in September ~ but we were depending on many of them for the intense harvesting of Fall crops. Due to budget constraints we have also had to give up the lease on the wonderful delivery truck which had made deliveries so much easier this year. Featherstone Farm will continue its service to the CSA as well as local and regional markets as best as possible through the remainder of the season.

Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables
30319 Wiscoy Ridge
Winona, MN 55987