Welcome to Rooted Agritourism. I'm Dr. Liz Fidler
-Murgan, owner of Sunny Mary Meadow, a you -pick
flower farm, wedding florist, and event venue
in central Minnesota. Our mission is to serve
anyone rooted in agritourism, value -added agriculture,
and rural entrepreneurship. The people turning
ideas and raw products into thriving businesses
and experiences. Let's dig in. Hello and welcome
back to another episode of the Rooted Agritourism
podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Fidler -Murgan,
and today we're just going to do a bit of a reflection
episode. of 2025. Next week, I want to announce
a lot of the big goals that we have set this
year, how it's important for me to have measurable
goals, smart goals, et cetera. But if you're
listening to this, you're someone who's probably
driven, has big goals. And I'm going to talk
about something that I've noticed on social media
the last week and continuing in today. It's probably
going to come across as a little harsh. And I
hope that no one takes it out of context because
I do mean it when I say, yes, give yourself grace.
Yes, your mental health. Yes, your hustle. Yes,
all of those things. But I've also seen a little
bit of shaming for people that are goal -driven
and people that are highly productive. And I
don't like how it feels. And I did this episode
maybe six months to a year ago where I talked
about how People just tell me that my life exhausts
them and how I just have so much going on and
I don't know how you do it. You need to slow
down and you're doing too much. And the posts
that I'm talking about are saying, you know,
a reminder when people are doing their year in
review, if this year didn't go as planned, it's
okay if all you did was get through it. And I
do agree, of course. There are definitely years,
2020 when Josh died, many parts of this year.
I'm ending the year with my barren womb again
with no pregnancy, infertility. We had our miracle
child that we got pregnant with and then we lost
it at 12 weeks. And just that sucks. My family
doesn't feel complete. I'm pretty sad about it.
And, you know, there were a lot of things that
I didn't achieve and goals that I had to pivot
on. And that's absolutely okay. But if year after
year, you're saying, you know, you didn't do
anything big this year and all you did was survive.
At some point, you got to kind of pause and say,
okay, well, what do I want to be different? Because
time is going to pass anyway. And I shared a
little bit on my Instagram stories today about
how... So 2026 is going to look like a huge year
for me. I'm really proud of that because we've
worked really hard. I mean, the guests that we
have lined up for this podcast, we started leveling
up the podcast, Rooted Agritourism, and then
honestly, we just had to take a little bit of
a pause with how my business was opening and
the time that that took. And now it's really
going to take off. I am so excited for what's
going to happen. The Farmers to Florist app is
launching. My book is getting published in March.
It's already written. It's done. I have a team
that's marketing it and publishing it. Everything's
in motion. I get to just enjoy that work. The
bloom room is getting rented out. My weddings
are booked. Everything is just happening. We're
able to just use it. We have this farm store.
We have all these things in place. And I've spent
five plus years. building it quietly. I didn't
just suddenly build this business and hope people
show up. I have an email list of 3000 people
with an open rate of 70 % and that's curating
it. And yeah, I only have about 8 ,000 followers
on social media, but a couple thousand watch
my stories every day. And that's because I show
up every day in it. And so there's that saying,
it takes 10 years to become an overnight success.
And that really is it, April. I had no idea how
much permitting and time and just hurry up and
wait it comes to when doing something like this.
We didn't open until October and that was after
flower season. My bank account looks terrible
right now because it was not a fun year. We didn't
do a lot of you picks. We didn't have people
at the farm. I didn't even really want to have
extra market bouquets for sale and pick up here
because I didn't have the capacity. to train
customers for our temporary setup and where you
pick things up. So really, we just served our
existing audience, fulfilled our existing weddings,
did our subscriptions, and just did what we could
and did a lot of planning for next year. And
now we built another high tunnel, all of those
things. And now in 2026, we have the space and
the infrastructure to actually meet all those
needs. And so my revenue predictions, for example,
I mean, I better triple. my revenue from 2025
to 2026, which is crazy, but it didn't happen
overnight. And it's not like, I'm not going to
be able to reflect back on 2026 and say, oh my
God, that was the year everything took off. It
just happened. No, the truth is it was years
of quiet work of barely, you know, just really
unrewarding work, if I'm being honest and just
grinding. And behind the scenes, not hustle.
I really was careful about not overdoing it.
And I knew that sustainability in terms of burnout,
I was really careful to just, you know, make
sure that we had enough help and make sure that
if it requires me working late evenings and on
the weekends constantly, that's not going to
work either. And so I do think that it's just
a reminder that. The slow and steady, you know,
the everyday habits that you do, that's what
really is going to help you reach your goals.
It's not one big thing. It's that quiet, you
know, every time I subscribe someone new to the
newsletter, it's every time that I, you know,
every single follower, every single thing, posting
every day on social media, training people to
go to my email list, training the customers,
having that word of mouth, asking for referrals.
Having, you know, that fertilizer framework that
I always talk about, the customer journey, what's
the next step? That's exactly what's happening
right now. So 2025 was such a foundation year,
but it was heavy. It was unglamorous, but it
was so. necessary and it tried me primarily as
a business owner the responsibility of not being
able to give myself grace and pause because this
is no longer a hobby side hustle this is a real
business with real risks now and the decision
making without clear answers and there was no
good answer balancing that growth with sustainability
of the business and having to fight for my rights
as a business owner and as a landowner and understanding
that It's no secret. I have some neighbors that
are really mad about my business and they live
a half a mile to a mile away. I can honestly
say, I do not believe that my farm store and
small event space is going to affect them whatsoever.
I don't think anything's changed. They don't
believe that businesses like this should exist
in the country. They think that if you want to
have a business like this, you should do it in
town. These are all documented things people
have said. And ultimately I got really bullied
into, I mean, I had a County official call me
and say, Hey, let's just sit down a select few
of us and, you know, rediscuss the conditions
that you're allowed. I'm like, no, that's not
the way this works. And it was just really hard
to stand up for what I believe is right. What
I believe for my community, try to do it with
grace. When people are being not kind to me,
when they're driving by and honking the horns
and screaming and calling me a liar and. screaming
f -bombs at committee meetings and being told
over and over again just kill them with kindness
and just calm down it'll it'll work out just
your silence speaks when eventually You have
to speak up and say, no, that's okay. This is
not just business. I am not going to grow calluses
and let people treat me this way. Enough is enough.
I'm going to do what I'm doing. I'm going to
do it respectfully, but also I'm not going to
keep taking this criticism at the same time.
It was a really hard year as a business owner,
and there'll be much more about that coming out.
I'm ready to start talking about it, but it's
conversations that I realize need to happen because
things are changing. I really hope that my farm
in... 30 years is still a farm and a functioning
business and not a housing development. I'm really
leery about what everything else is going to
look like. And you have to, you know, I can't
control what is built across the road from me,
but I can control my own property. And so it's
a hard, a hard thing to do. Sunny Mary Meadow
in 2023, we did two weddings. 2024, I think we
had, I don't know, somewhere between nine and
11 weddings and they were all pretty small. And
then 2025 this year, we had 31 weddings and that
was a mark of trust and not just volume and being
really intentional about the weddings that we
said yes to and watching how couples engaged
with the farm beyond their wedding day and just
seeing how that went. And right now it is January
1st and we have 24 weddings already booked for
this year. Last year at this time, we had nine
and I am so excited. We have built everything
to help reflect that. help us allow to grow more
flowers, bigger coolers, more staff, convenience
of picking up, and then that continuous customer
journey where every offering fertilizes the next
and they can host their showers here and they
can come back year after year and get their bouquets
and pick the flowers. And it's just, it's really
exciting to see it in practice. And I know that
readiness matters more than desire. It just took
a long time for the building to get ready. The
other thing that is really exciting for this
year, I entered 2025 thinking that my book was
going to stay in draft mode forever. It was about
200 pages of random little stories and I was
trying to turn it into a self -help book and
I just, it didn't feel right. And I went to a
podcasting conference and I met the founder of
a publishing company. And he was like, you know,
the reason most people don't finish their book
is because they're writing the wrong book. And
I realized immediately what that meant to me.
And that's because this book needs to be the
story of how we got here and why it happened
through grief and how the decisions led to Sunny
Mary Meadow and the backstory of it. Because
in five years, I want to be talking about flowers
and building a business and agritourism. And
I don't want to be talking about. grief and widowhood.
I mean, it's part of my story. It's huge. It
resonates with people. It is a huge piece of
it, but it's not the whole story. And so that
book comes out in March and I'm so excited. You
know, this podcast here, the pivoting from Flower
Farmer Forum to this, we're still having Flower
Farmer Forum conference. It's just the podcast
is renamed and it's just a pull toward broader
agritourism and agriculture conversations. Just
this desire to tell stories that often go unseen
and feeling grounded rather than reactive. And
I'm just, you know, 2025 was a year that it shaped,
it clarified. I'm very proud, but I'm not going
to gloss over the difficulty. It was a really
rough year. Reflection creates better momentum.
And so reflecting on this last year, what things
we want to change and next episode. It's going
to be all about goal setting, goal setting for
the year, how we do it, how I categorize it,
how I measure throughout the year. I'm going
to try to use it with fake numbers, but also
it's really hard to not just give my real numbers.
So whatever, it's fine. But just how I set my
goals for the year and how I measure them throughout
month to month and make sure that things are
good to go. But thank you so much for being here
and bloom and grow. Thank you so much for listening
to this episode of Rooted Agritourism. If you
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