March: Resuscitation

Could there BE a more welcome time for the return of the sun? The promise that the greening of spring brings is invaluable, especially while our world weathers a rather tumultuous time. Remember the first March of the coronavirus pandemic? If it was bound to strike, I was so grateful for it to happen during the season that absolutely blindsides me with relief: Relief that the earth is being resuscitated under my feet. And every spring, as I spend increasingly more time immersed in the warming air, I feel life being breathed back into me.
If ever there seems to be a lack of stability in life...the cycling of the seasons is a great metronome...keeping time and summoning us to the field to commence our spring rituals. Winter is loosening his grip and Summer has even peeked her head in the door, gifting us with a few sunny afternoons warm enough to collect beads of sweat on my back while I work. There is so much chatter in the trees these days, birds around the farm making their big plans. And the fire that was born in Rich when we first started farming...it got it's yearly rekindling within these past few weeks as the familiar seasonal patterns have given us the green light.
Spring is exceptionally sensory and in spite of what that Punxsutawny hooligan predicted, I tasted, smelled, heard, saw and felt spring start one day in late February. On this particular day, May and I burst out of the farmhouse, interrupting the same pair of finches who attempts to nest in the light above the door. It felt like a gift had been dropped off on our stoop: an early spring! I noticed a fly exploring the shadows of the shop in the barn and later instinctively smacked a mosquito coming in for a landing on May's bare arm. Nuisance or not, the wee flying ones are coming to. In an announcement at lunch, May declared it was time that none of us needed pants on the farm until December came again. She could feel it was no-pants season in her bones :).

Confirmation of Phil's deceit came in the form of the first epic spring thunderstorm. It roared through the night, keeping weary Rich awake to witness the awesome light show. I fell asleep to the bass drum booms of thunder and woke to a world that smelled like wet, musky soil and earthworms. It had been months since I'd breathed in that deep, rich scent...if you breathe in through your mouth your taste buds can savor the rain. Lightning enriches the earth during these storms...shattering nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere which combine with oxygen to form nitrates that feed the soil. All the life-giving forces of spring are starting to work their magic. It only takes a farmer a few seasons of observing the outstanding plant growth that a thunderstorm brings virtually overnight, to learn that we can only take a fraction of the credit due for our harvests. The intricacy of the natural world can not be duplicated. Ecosystems each authentically designed by Earth's intuition. Irrigation from our well, a basin of soil-filtered ground water, pales in comparison to a deep watering from the clouds. Rainwater is true miracle gro...with an acidic pH that unlocks micronutrients bound up in the soil as well as delivering more of that nitrogenous medicine from the atmosphere to the plants that so depend on it. Mother Nature must shake her head at the costly production of chemical nitrogen fertilizer, a lame attempt at mimicing her beautiful facilitation of seed sewn to seed grown.
We've started to see the conventional crop farmers standing outside their trucks in the field to assess soil conditions. Oftentimes having multiple lifetimes' worth of southern Ohio spring history to work with, these farmers are inherently excellent judges of soil character...gambling on when the time is right for first seeding with the wisdom of multiple generations. Here on our farm we play the transplant game with some of our produce, cheating the system by giving trays of plants a month's head start in the comfort of the growhouse. It's possible that Mother Nature also shakes her head at the extra energy it takes to move seedlings from trays to beds in order to extend our season.
All the while she is just ravishing...orchestrating murmurations of starlings in the sky and vegetating the blackened garden soil with sky-rocketing bulbs: crocuses on base, daffodils up to bat and our heirloom garlic on-deck for its chance to hit it big. The trees are filling in just like they do in a kid's drawing. First thing's first: the skeleton of a winter tree laying foundation for the little burst of green that percolates forth from the branches. Every day on my walk with the kids, I notice the trees penciled in with more green just like the gradual strokes on paper. It's a flip book affair. And as I watch bud development, I do my annual finger-crossing for all the fruit growers as the competition between winter and spring comes to its climax. I am always cheering for spring to prevail by the time buds are near blossoming. It's those last throes of a tenacious winter when we see frosts that devastate apple crops.
It's been warm enough to heed May's wardrobe advice this past week. And I might have just done it, if not for that nagging memory of the snow fall last April. We didn't get a light-hearted dusting, it was a storm that cloaked our mature, spring scenery in a white coat a week before May would begin. It was as if the dumbstruck resident crow laden with sleek, black feathers was having its first look with the decked out red bud tree, all dressed in white.
So I think we'll all keep our pants on for now. We'll be mindful of those spring cues: the blooming dandelions, the veteran farmers in their fields, and the rising soil temperatures. And now that the earth's pulse is tangible again, it's time to shine.

Staying on Track:
-Online ordering continues into April
-Save the date for our plant sale: Saturday, May 14th (10-noon) in the Oakwood Farmers Market parking lot at 22 Orchard Drive. We'll start accepting pre orders on Sunday, May 8th. Lots of flowers, veggies, and herb starts for your garden. We'll make it a party with some baked goods and local coffee to boot!
-We've gotten the first transplants in the field and we've turned the hoop over which is growing one more round of spring produce before tomatoes take over.
-If you shop at Dorothy Lane for our goods, we drop off the Washington Square batch on Thursdays as per usual. The Springboro and Oakwood deliveries are made on Fridays now!
-No lambs yet :)...we are happy to have them come when the grass is green, so we are happy about that. As we keep the rams in with the ewes year-round, they breed at their will.