Happy Friday y’all!

Spring and winter are swirling together lately. Some days are so warm that we are sweaty and uncomfortable and then we’re hit with strong winds and freezing nights. You can tell it is later in spring, though, by the radiant effect of the earth. A warm day after a lot of cold is extra refreshing, because though the air is warm, the earth itself and every item of mass (trees, rocks, buildings) is radiating cold. That differential is what feels so refreshing to me. It works in reverse too. A fresh cool breeze while the earth is radiating warmth is so much better than a cool breeze on a cool day when everything around you is cold. I may be deluding myself, but I feel like I notice that differential diminishing already as the blossoms disappear from the fruit trees and are replaced by leaves.

The earliest part of spring is probably my favorite. In part due to this effect. In part due to the freshness of the very first of everything awakening from dormancy. In part due to the early spring smells and the lack of massive pollen drops. Also to the lack of mosquitoes, wasps, and copperheads and the growing sensation that another Georgia summer is coming for me.

The pollen has arrived though. Our car has gone from charcoal to yellow. A Prince album sitting on our porch looks like it went through a dust storm. Poor little dusty Prince. I covered the open aired walls of our cabin with plastic to avoid having to clean it out when this onslaught finally passes. Still though, I love spring. The beginning is clearly the best, but I’ll be grateful for the rest of it as long as we are fortunate enough to have it. I hope you get a chance to get out in it too (if you’re in a springy latitude). It’s lovely to see fresh life. I caught a glimpse of this year’s first Eastern Swallowtail fluttering past the farm store this morning. It floated on past, down towards some flowering vines by the woods, dodging darting birds out by the tree-line.

The Farm Store is open-ish. We opened yesterday (Thursday) but had the neighbors inform us they needed the field and our parking lot today (Friday), so we announced we will be closed today. It’s their field we park on. We’re grateful for its use, so we’re happy to comply with whatever they need. We’re fortunate to have kind neighbors out here. The good news is that we’ll be open on Saturday for normal hours (9a-3p).

UPDATE: The weather changed and we have opened up the Farm Store for the day afterall! If you need fresh flowers or a little something special this weekend, come on by this afternoon. We'll close up at 5p.

It’s beautiful in the Farm Store! I am always taken aback by the magic Mandy puts into that place. The curation of the products is always intriguing, but also the unique, yet somehow congruous nature of every table, shelf, and rack in there. None of it goes together, but all of it very much goes together. It’s so lovely. And the flowers adorning her mom’s constantly evolving and always brilliant pottery are so unbelievably delightful right now. It’s just a lovely place to be.

And as always, if you buy a vase filled with flowers, you get the flowers in the vase as well. We do have flowers in there for sale too if you are looking to pick up some beauty. Poppies, daffodils, ranunculus and anemones.

Speaking of which, we absolutely adore anemones, despite it being our achilles heal for years. It's not often we aren’t able to learn from our mistakes and improve upon something, but we’ve had bad year after bad year after bad year with them. To the point where I lobbied for us to stop growing them…multiple times.

To her credit, Mandy kept buying and planting them and somehow finally turned the corner on our luck. We’ve got the best producing, healthiest, and most beautiful anemones that we’ve ever had! If you’ve not had them, they are beautiful and iridescent, particularly when the sunlight hits them just right. It’s mildly psychedelic staring into their open petals with the right light. They’re also fascinating in that even in the vase, they still grow significantly. Not only in height, but also in diameter. A 1” diameter flower, will become a 4” flower over the 7-10 days it lives in a vase. They grow taller day by day too. In the evenings, they actually close up for bed, only to open back up the next day. They are so alive and dynamic in the vase, its a bit mesmerizing.

We’ve had a couple of rough years with ranunculus too as they can be tricky to grow, but right now they are coming on strong and looking beautiful as multiple successions are in bloom at the moment. Both ranunculus and anemones are quite fleeting, so if you’ve been thinking about beautifying your house with them, your window is here, but will be gone soon, so now is a great opportunity to get some in your life!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are, and enjoy the crap out of your spring whenever you get it.Be well!

Steve