May-Graduation

May-Graduation
Building beds of black gold

I got an invitation to a good friend's graduation party in the mail this week.  It's in the air...the call to jump into the next phase.  The weather is beckoning us to step through the door and to try to keep up with the pace of spring.  It's time that the great outdoors is a little easier on us all, less layers for humans to pile on and more incentives for wildlife to come out to play.

May's kindergarten teacher issued the latest weekly newsletter which highlighted that we have three weeks until the end of the school year.  That means there are three weeks until May's first summer break begins and we are all eating lunch together every day, living as we did before school entered the kids' lives.  And so began the churning in May's mind over having to move on from her first classroom, away from the sweet community borne under Miss H's watch, and into unknown territory of first grade, which may as well be college in her mind.  This rumination is so familiar to me, someone who sets root relatively quickly, connecting to place and people and resisting uprooting.

School Days

This year she has learned how to disagree with other kids respectfully, to share in the collective responsibility of a group, to be away from us and to trust another adult.  She tackled that last one more easily than her dad and me.  And now comes a lesson in good-bye and moving on.  Celebrations will unfold at the end of the month to recognize the difference a school year makes, and we'll have all summer to digest the kindergarten memories and to speculate about what the next year will bring.

The essence of summer for a school kid is the polar opposite of a farmer's.  Rich and I are entering our sixth year managing Foxhole...instead of a new lunchbox and a set of pencils, we restocked our ball jar in the barn with fresh Sharpies and picked up a few packs of lightweight work gloves to get off on a good foot.  We feel the promise of a new start in the field and look forward to being schooled by the farm once again...this time we'll be a little more adept at rolling with the punches after graduating from last season.  We'll be tested repeatedly and luckily we aren't operating in a number or letter grading system, but rather pass or fail.  And if we have proven that we can pass the test five times over, despite seasons started with less resources, spent pregnant or struggling immensely with autoimmunity,  rewritten by COVID and even delayed by a very late start in year one when we didn't get access to the property until mid-April, I'm feeling optimistic.

May and her classmates are working away at memory books to commemorate the year.  When I volunteered for my last session, I helped the 21 little jumping beans make handprint papers for the project.  What a difference a year makes...their hands have grown since they first entered the classroom, their brains were pushed and pulled, they formed a social dynamic and forged friendships and some even mastered the monkey bars.  I chatted with kids about their thoughts on first grade as we sponge brushed gloppy techincolor paint on their hands.  Largely, they claim they aren't ready.  This is a testament to the comfort zone Miss H managed this past year.  Though tentative, they are ready and their brains are hungry for more syllables, they're ready to explore the world of 1st grade which they heard about from upperclassmen on the playground (what is this mysterious social studies...?), and to chart new territories.

I'm glad they are encouraged to remember the year on paper.  Why don't we all make memory books anymore?  Maybe our phones' photo catalogs are a more practical and reliable way to get the job done.  Maybe that's why I find myself ending lots of nights perusing the thousands of pictures stored on my phone.  Oh, the stories we are all living, the places we've come from and what lies ahead.  

And now at the precipice of a new season, mourning doves are acting as the morning bell, calling us to our am lessons in the field...sheep to water, the hoop house walls to crank open, more beds to compost and seed in the field, plant sale plugs to groom for market, sourdough starter to feed...another school year begins.


Updates from the farm:

-Online Ordering: One more month until market season begins at the Oakwood Farmers Market!  In the meantime, you can continue to order from us weekly in our online shop which opens on Monday mornings.  

-Spring Plant Sales: Now that daylight hours are increasing and we are reaching that last frost date, with no freezing nights in the ten day forecast, we can talk plants!  We expanded on our plant sale offering this year and will be popping up with three different plant sales this spring:

Saturday May 13th 12-2pm at Eudora Brewing Company in Kettering

Saturday May 20th 10-12 in the Oakwood Lot at 22 Orchard Drive in Oakwood (where we offer our Saturday pick ups throughout the year)

Sunday May 21st 10-12 in the lot at Rinse Cycle/Ghostlight Coffee on Patterson downtown

-Conservation on the Farm: We applied and enrolled in a Conservation Reserve Program with the USDA and Farm Service Agency.  We planted 200 native trees on the farm, taking that acreage out of pasture production and committed it to habitat and buffer space.  We are so excited about this program which incentivizes farmers to take land out of production and re-establish land cover, to mitigate the loss of wildlife habitat, to improve water quality and to prevent soil erosion.  We intend to apply again this fall and to plant more acreage most proximal to the wetlands which were wiped out this spring by General Motors.

-The field is coming to life: We have carrots coming up in the field as well as kohlrabi, beets, salad mix, and collard greens.  Komatsuna, arugula and spring peas are going in this week as well.  The hoop is transitioning and we have ginger and tomatoes in trays/coming out of our ears which will be planted out in a few weeks.  We planted enough potatoes this past week to bring to you at market :)(red-skinned, creamy yellow fleshed and purple skinned).


Thanks to the generous folks who paid to subscribe to our Foxhole Journal last year, we were able to fund this site for years to come.  Going forward, we are making all publications available for free.  No more pay wall!  If you'd like to contribute still, you can fund my writing by 'buy(ing) me a coffee' any time you'd like.  Thank you for reading :).