Every summer the weather is unbearably, dangerously, unsustainably hot, and every year we talk about it.

In fact, we talk about it A LOT.

We’ve taken steps over the years to address these conditions ; we schedule work around heat, we have a Liquid IV subscription, we tell ourselves “this is just part of farming”, and we try to remember that someday the season will change.

But to no avail. Every year during our annual season of lamenting, it inevitably comes up: it is too dang hot and our farm needs a pool.

“Pool talk” has been going on around here for at least five years, and we’re finally doing something about it. As we prepare for excessive heat due to climate change, we are raising money for a down payment on our very own ‘farmworker hydrocooling station’. We are going to build an in-ground natural swimming pool, and we need all the help we can get.

After all, our farm is in it for the long haul. We love this work and have devoted the past 13 years to building soil, infrastructure, markets and community around growing quality food, and we want to be doing this work for another decade or two (at least).

As the farm matures we are better positioned to meet the needs of the people who do the work with the same care and focus that we give to the land and produce. Sadly, this is much easier to theorize than to implement in the early years of farm start-up, but now we are ready to mitigate burnout and prioritize quality of life. We are actively trying to restore resiliency to our bodies and minds while farming full time.

A pool offers us a chance to recover quickly and easily from the heat, ‘hydrocooling’ our bodies the way we hydrocool kale from the field. A pool gives our crew (most of whom also reside on the farm during the season) and their families a comfortable way to relax and have fun while living in rural isolation. A pool will help offset the sacrifice our crew makes to work a full season when peak harvest time coincides with peak vacation time, and offers us a way to “bring the vacation home” for fun and team building.

For us, a pool is a farm infrastructure project that supports our health, safety, and endurance. As sustainable farmers, we need the farm to be sustainable for us too. Longevity comes from our ability to balance the work without sacrificing quality of life or our physical and mental wellbeing.

If our farming efforts have enriched your day-to-day life and you want to enrich ours, thank you! We are grateful for support at any level, including any valuable pool ‘life lessons’ or good contractor connections.

We’ve started and we hope to be swimming in 2027, for the farm’s 15th birthday. With your help, this process will be expedited. Good thing we are farming for the long haul anyways!

For more information about our farm, visit our website .