April showers

Looking at a thoroughly wet day today, so I'm catching up on all sorts of projects.  You're getting a blog post out of one of them!

The farm has been a busy place lately.  Just eight or nine days ago, we had nighttime lows of 22 F - and then the last couple days the daytime highs have been up in the 80s.  With the warm temperature Nature is really starting to take off.  Dandelions are blooming now, trees are budding out, robins are foraging..and the ground dried right out.  So I got to work planting, and the mesclun mix, radishes, lettuce, and arugula I planted just before Easter are germinating pretty well by now.  The peas too, and they're probably up by now - they were germinating but still below the soil when I poked around in there yesterday.  Transplants are starting to go out too, and by now I've already got over five hundred baby lettuces planted outside.  If anything, the ground has gotten too dry lately.  The Easter weekend rain I was expecting was a little disappointing, and then the rain forecast for late last week never really showed up either...so today is the first real soaking rain we've had in over two weeks.  (For that matter, it was mostly snow before that).  So I spent Monday running around getting irrigation equipment set up, trying to hurry the little seedlings along on their way.  It's already been a blessing.

It might have been the late winter, or it might more likely be the way that my income this year is so dependent on growing things, but I feel like this is getting to  be one of the most beautiful springs I can remember.  I've never really been a big fan of the season, honestly.  I mean, I work outdoors, and I'd rather work in nice weather than in the cold and snow, but the season I love the most has always been autumn.  But this year? It just feels like hope, to me, like life and fertility are flowing back into the land.  Every bud on the apples, every lettuce or potato in the ground, is a possibility right now - and the fact that some of those possibilities are going to turn into cash in my pocket doesn't make them less awe-inspiring.  In fact it makes me all the more appreciative.  It has been a long, hungry winter and I for one have never appreciated a spring more.  Let's hope it brings good things, and that today's rain is a forecast (not too much, not too little) of fine weather in the year to come.

Dave