On January 5th, our farm was directly hit by an EF2 tornado. Most of the crops growing survived 130 MPH winds, but a lot of our infrastructure and about 20 trees did not. Kaden and I have to navigate a path forward without the aid of our caterpillar tunnels, because they were destroyed. A good portion of our row cover/frost blankets were shredded as well. A huge hit was losing the greenhouse with all of our baby lettuce/cabbage/broccoli and so many other transplants that we were due to begin planting in the fields next week. The most frustrating part of it all was that our brand new wash and pack area was destroyed. At the end of 2024, our farm recieved a $10,000 grant from the Louisiana Small Scale Agriculture Coalition to renovate our wash and pack area and increase the size of our walk in cooler! When the tornado hit, we were about 3 days shy of wrapping up construction. A lot of our siding, insulation, and wood was damaged beyond repair, and that seriously cut into my budget for the grant to replace those supplies. The row cover, tunnels, crop loss, and the wash and pack rebuild have set our farm back more than $10,000. I haven't even calculated how getting a late Spring start will impact our operations. Creating this donation is certainly a big lesson in humility for me, and being open to asking for help. Kaden and I feel like we should always offer something in return for money. Several of my mentors who encouraged setting up this donation told me not to look at asking for help like I just have my empty hands out waiting for them to be filled. They all repeated that our community will want to help, because they understand the value that our farm brings to the local community. If you only have money for a farm share, it means so much to our farm to support us in that way. If you can afford to, then any amount you are willing to contribute will go so far towards helping us bounce back from the tornado's impact. Thank you so much for believing in us and allowing us to wake up and fulfill our farming dreams every single day. Your farmer, Conrad Cable