Happy Friday y’all!

Warm week out here with temps in the low to mid 80s, beckoning nature further from its slumber. The peach blossoms are gorgeous and are now being joined by beautiful plum blossoms on nearby trees. This year, some of our stone fruit trees are sporting both white and pink flowers, giving us extra beauty. The reason being is that a lot of these trees are grafted onto root stock which has sent up its own flowering branches and now we’re getting both colors in one tree, which tilted my head and tickled my brain upon first glance. It’s hard for me to photograph well with our camera’s lens, but it is quite lovely.

If that was confusing, I should say that fruit trees are often grafted on to rootstock of other trees for a variety of reasons. One being that certain rootstock can be more tolerant of wet soils and resistant to soil borne diseases than the roots of your preferred fruit. So you put the strong roots on bottom and graft the preferred fruit tree onto that.

Another reason is to control the height of a tree. Plum rootstock is less vigorous than peach for example, so it’ll make other stone fruit trees grafted onto it, smaller with shorter internodes. Therefore it is easier to manage and harvest from. Imagine trying to pick peaches 30 feet up in the air on tens or hundreds of trees – not to mention, pruning, thinning, spraying, protecting from frost, etc. Fruit trees are a lot of work on any significant scale. Small is better for a lot of reasons.

Ours never produced reliable fruit, so we just kept them for the flowering branches and stopped pruning them. Today’s pink and white blossoms on the same tree are a lovely result of that neglect.

Our poppies are loving this time of year and growing so incredibly abundantly and cheerfully.  I mentioned the challenge of getting a good shot of the fruit tree blossoms together, but the poppies have had no such issues whatsoever.

Much like today’s youth, they are dying to get in front of the camera and be seen. I spent a sunrise and sunset taking shots of the gorgeous pastel poppies, and it was such an intoxicating process that it made me wanna spend more time behind the lens exploring the farm at those golden hours.

When I shoot something with my phone, it almost feels like a distraction. Similar to the dopamine bump you get from scrolling your phone. It sometimes feels like it’s just scratching a psychological itch, while taking me further out of the present moment. It’s like a part of my brain sees something beautiful, instructs me to snap a pic, then says…”mission accomplished…move on.” But the mission was to appreciate it and be moved by it…not to put a picture of it on my phone where I probably won’t ever look at it. So in actuality, mission failed.

Somehow with an actual camera though, I feel the opposite. It seems to sharpen my awareness of the beauty around me and to invite me to explore it more fully, taking me deeper into the present moment instead of away from it. Not sure why my brain processes it so inversely, when technically I’m doing almost the exact same thing, but it’s definitely interesting to note the vastly different outcome.

Everything is humming along smoothly out here.  The first subscriptions went out this week.  The mum cuttings are so healthy and productive that we’ll likely be listing extras a lot earlier than anticipated.  The fields are waking up with daffodils and the first leaves of the peony bushes.

The frogs are still singing and the grackles are doing their collective flutterings overhead each sunset that feels like an auditory ripple through the sky, followed by clusters of hundreds of these birds twisting and turning in magical unison.

Hellebore peeps, your orders will be shipping out Wednesday and will arrive either Thursday or Friday.  Check your email for shipping confirmation and tracking info on Wednesday evening.

My brother and sister-in-law are here for a quick visit, so we’re off to get some quality time with them and go for the season’s first swim in our buddy’s amazing rock quarry. We’re already sweating on the farm, especially in the tunnels, so a cold dip at a beautiful spot will be a welcome excursion. I’m excited to share one of Georgia’s little treats with them.

Perhaps we’ll see you on the Comer circuit this weekend.

Be well!

Steve