It was a close call with frost this Monday and Tuesday.  We woke up to 34 degrees and concern that we may have lost our veggie plants and possibly some mother’s day flowers, but I guess we lucked out.  All survived. I hope any of you living a little further north or higher in elevation were able to protect your precious veggie babies. It’s always a tough blow to lose your plants to frost and we’re not supposed to get any after April 15th each year, but we all know how that goes. 

   We did lose some of our favorite peonies to that real deep freeze awhile back.  Not the plants, but the flowers.  They are always the first to bloom and each year they were getting more abundant, but now there’s just barely a handful of flowers in those rows. The buds must have just formed when we got that 20 degree weather and it hit so hard that it stopped them from developing any further.  You get just one shot a year with plants like that.  Kind of a risky investment if you are depending on it to pay the bills.  Wise to diversify.  The later varieties seem okay though, so we will have peonies in our mother’s day bouquets!

  Speaking of Mother’s Day, Mandy has been doing her usual Spring routine of working 12 hours on the farm and then starting her shift in the store and working the next 3 to 4 hours making everything beautiful in there, so there’s lots of unique gifts waiting to be found and passed on to all the deserving moms and mom figures out there.  

  Anna Strickland in her role as head of the local Chamber of Commerce has been heroically fanning the flames of what feels like a growing awareness of how magical Comer and Madison county are and she brought a group of local young entrepreneurs out on a beautiful evening last night to hear us wax philosophical about running a small business in rural Georgia.  If you are looking to locate out here and start that roller disco we’ve been longing for, get in touch with her and she’ll help you make it happen.

  Lastly, keep your eyes out for Monarchs.  They are currently migrating back north from their overwintering sites.  We’ve been seeing a few here and there for the last couple of weeks and I’m always flooded with joy when they’re near.  Fascinating butterflies with amazing migration stories.  I’ll try and write about them in greater detail in a coming newsletter.

  Be well, appreciate every moment you can, and be kind others.  It ripples outwards.

Have a great weekend!