Wards of Old Man Winter

Wards of Old Man Winter
Spinning shoots before they freeze

The lamp over the leather couch is on and it's nearly noon.  Soon enough this will be unthinkable when the farmhouse is well lit by summer sun.  Thick clouds are blanketing the sky, and somewhere within those fluffy masses, ice particles are accumulating hastily.  Snow will fall again this afternoon to the kids' delight.  

We're under Old Man Winter's watch here in late February and there is no end in sight. He is due to clock out within the month and you can feel him tiring...spring has peeked in thawing us out and making a marshland out of southern Ohio, only to be pushed away again by frost. The great changing of the guards tug of war is upon us!

Each winter week, our routine shifts based on his whims.  We try to harvest and pack our produce in the warmest hours we're given. And yet, during the more relentlessly frigid weeks, I still find myself racing to thaw the inside of the big salad spinner with water from the hose so that our freshly washed greens don't freeze to the sides.  We cheat the system and prop a space heater up by which to warm our hands as we go.  I speed-package the pea shoots before that same ice crystallization from the sky develops within our tender plants, bursting their cell walls. If I don't move fast, Jack Frost paints his pictures across all the wet surfaces.  I move at a clip, which is really the only way to move in cold weather to stay comfortable anyway.

It was just the other week when I was busy harvesting sunflower shoots...my fingers chilled like shrimp cocktail.  My numbed finger tips quite immune to the cold. Making pass after pass with the shears, my eyes caught sight of slick, hair-raising crimson. I had nearly cut the side of my thumb off, but couldn't feel a thing.  And so the shoots went to the compost and I went to wrap and glove my hand.  I couldn't help but shake my head: what a fool to be so careless with these mitts of mine, my livelihood. Having nearly severed the tip of that same thumb in culinary school, I knew that if I kept it clean and bandaged, the tissue would likely marry.  My frankenstein appendage has regrown very well...no evidence of the hazards of winter work to be seen here.  You can always day dream about an insulated wash and pack...

Whether it's 15 degrees or not

If well-wrapped like walking burritos, the kids could be outside until the nibs of their noses are so strikingly red that we wrangle them in to take a cocoa break.  Rich is happiest on sourdough days, baking at least 2 days a week this time of the year, tending the warm ovens amidst coffee-laced field planning, video-making, or getting back to his latest book.  He's the sourest when the portable fencing spikes are frozen solid in the ground or the freeze and thaw of the farmhouse roof has caused the same old leak to weep again.  And me?  I'm largely a romantic for winter on the farm...it's still, and there is a hush over the farm, with so many of the native species dormant or tucked away.  Like the resonance of the ocean you hear within a conch shell...it is so incredibly soothing and subdued.  I wonder if it's like what we heard for months before being born into the world?

The cats' coats are nearly thick as the sheep's, Rich has gotten to planning his alternate reality farm life growing tropical fruits in tshirts the year round somewhere close to the equator (this plotting comes toward the end of winter every year), and we have bins of seed full of potential and ready for spring.  Chives and flowers have already sprung to life in trays in our grow house, our latest additions to the farm, 25 little layer chicks, are growing by the day in their brooder, and the sap is running in the maple trees...it's nearly closing time, Old Man.


Housekeeping:

-Online ordering continues and by the end of March and into April you can expect head lettuce and other goodies to join the menu from the hoop house

-We have 25 layer chicks that joined the farm.  Obviously this is a small number and so any extra eggs for market will be spare and first come, first served.  We used to raise pastured layers on a bigger scale, but the prospect of maintaining an eggmobile that roams the fields is out of the question this year with our full plates.  You never know in years to come :)

-Sheep are yet to lamb, which we are grateful for.  We keep the whole pack together, allowing them to breed at will.  We can see the ewes are pregnant, but have not seen their milk "bags" fill yet.  Maybe this month!  The closer we are to green grass season, the better :).

-Spring plant sale plans are in the works with the earliest trays already seeded.

-We continue to take sign ups for our year-round csa.  If you shop regularly from us throughout the year, this is a good way to help us cover up front costs of our season and a good way for you to earn $20 extra dollars to spend with us throughout the year.  $200 spent on a share buys you $220 worth of credit to use via online shopping or at market year round on whatever you'd like.

-If you missed it, we created the Foxhole Journal where you can subscribe to read weekly posts...stories from the farm, how-to's, etc.  

-Rich has been dipping his toes in video-making.  We now have a Youtube channel which is almost as good as coming to the farm :)