We seem to have a new project every day here at Isbell Farms, and that’s how we like it to be. It keeps things fun and exciting and tends to leave us exhausted.

Maybe that’s why we seem to let the website take a backseat to everything else.

But as of today, we are making a new commitment to keep everyone updated and let you join us on these adventures.

Today, August 25th, 2022, we are very close to beginning harvest. The rice has turned a beautiful golden color, and you can smell it in the air. Of course, people laugh when I say that, but it’s true… you can genuinely smell the rice when it is ready to harvest. After living on a farm my whole life, it’s a smell that I’ve come to love.

When harvest begins, we will work crazy long hours, eat most of our meals while operating equipment, and to be completely honest, we will probably be a little cranky. Harvest generally lasts about two months if everything goes according to plan. The weather is a huge factor and will determine our schedule more than anything else. When the weather is good, we go full speed ahead, and many nights we run with lights as long as we can. The longer the rice sits in the fields after its ripe and ready, the more the yield potential decreases. Therefore, it’s to our advantage to get it out of the field and into the grain bins as quickly as possible.

We will do our best to give you a weekly harvest update.

Sake News:

We attended The Joy of Sake in New York this month. We had a fantastic time tasting all the different sake and visiting with new and old friends.

We will attend the Sake Stakeholders Summit in Washington, D.C., on September 20th. We are very much looking forward to this. Thank you to the Sake Brewers Association of North America for planning this event.

We plan to attend Sake Day in San Francisco on October 1st. We were able to attend this last year, and we enjoyed it so much that we will have our own table there this year. So if you are there, please come by and say hello!

At Isbell Farms, we have a great interest in sake rice, sustainability, new varieties, and new methods. But at the end of the day, the most important thing to us is family. It’s who we are. This farm has been owned and loved by the same family for many years, and it’s our goal to make that last for generations to come.

We work together, play together… we love, laugh, cry and even fight occasionally…but when it’s all boiled down, the love of a family is stronger than anything. It’s not perfect, but it’s good. We are thankful that we have the privilege of caring for and loving this land, that we’ve been able to grow rice, try new adventures, dream together, and do it all as a family.

Until Next Time,

Whitney