Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.
Charles Dickens
Our coffee is slowly being moved from our drying tables and being transported to the dry mill. It is always sad to see the crazy beauty of harvest being traded for the fury of coffee cupping and logistics. This season we couldn’t have made it through without the incredible LMCP team. Let me tell you, the people committed to making Long Miles happen, they really are absolutely INCREDIBLE. Volunteers, interns and staff pulled together in massive ways to make harvest go as smoothly as possible. It was still not without it’s major hiccups. Heza, our second station, was only operational half-way through the season as we met delay after delay after delay. Which meant that we were trucking coffee cherries a short distance over terrible switchbacking dirt roads to lay them on the already burdened tables at our Bukeye station.
If Ben and I learned anything this season, it’s the value of celebrating small victories while standing on a landscape that seems to be full of problems and struggles. We didn’t always do it well, but celebrating the small things helped us through the extra rough bits. Do we want to repeat another season like this one? Absolutely not… next year we have vowed not to build ANYTHING. Two babies, err… washing stations… is enough. Honing our coffee’s quality and deepening our relationships in the communities we are a part of is our focus now.
Deeper. Stronger. Calmer. That’s our mantra moving forward.
There were so many amazing moments this harvest that I just didn’t get around to blogging about. Like Brittany’s naturals and honey research, Lauren and Epapharus’ Antestia bug eradication program (employing out of school youth and getting rid of the potato defect in one fell superhero leap), Texas Jake’s triple tier tables, Lori’s rescued owls, and Caleb’s worm farm to name just a few. Most of those moments ended up on our Instagram accounts if you want to have a look.
This week you can find our coffee online and in stores at Stumptown and Coffee Labs for a very limited time. Also, we are so over the moon about this lovely feature on the Artifact Uprising site. They are masters in the craft of printing, and printed a beautiful book for us a little while ago.
thought of you guys when i saw this today…not sure it will load well w/ your internet but worth the watching if you can get it…it’s always inspiring and encouraging for me to sit in my office here in CO and see your pics and read your stories and think of how i can form relationships, take risks, and share the good news with the people i work with every day, you guys are awesome.
https://shawnblanc.net/thedetails/#video