And so it goes.  The maples have all turned green.  The lunaria’s purple flowers have turned into silver dollars studded with partially formed seeds.  The viburnums’ snowballs have melted. The ranunculus are breathing their last.  Butterfly Ranunculus too.  (Speaking of which, I saw our first monarch the other day.  Always a treat.)  The carpenter bees are attempting to undo 13 years of my efforts, rafter by rafter.  The dogs and cats are adorable as ever.  The guinea that found itself tangled in bailing twine from the neighbor’s field is doing quite well.  I guess I should tell that story.   Last week, Kali saw a guinea that looked like its shoelaces were tied together.  Being expert biologists, Mandy and I knew...

We’re finally getting some cooler weather again.  Spring came on virtually all at once and fully burst everything wide open.  Purple splashes of lunaria are starting to spot the landscape.  The anthocyanin rich baby leaves of the Japanese Maple are just embers of the fire they’ll soon be.  The blossoms have all fallen off the peach, plum, and pear trees. The winter honeysuckle is fragrant no more.  The grass is tall and the tulip poplars and oaks have started to bud out. Clouds of yellow pollen are being puffed out in big exhalations from every species of tree imaginable. The catkins are long and thick with it.  Our lungs are heavy with it. Eyes irritated and heads full. The solar...

Happy Friday y’all!   Things are springing to life out here and it’s beautiful!  Bird song fills the farm and lately the frogs have been singing down in the woods.  Even the wasps have been floating around looking for new real estate. It’s been high 70’s and even climbed into the 80’s for us this week.  I know it’s unnatural and there’s ramifications of the unpleasant sort associated, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just gonna enjoy a beautiful day when I’m in one.  Even if it’s wildly out of season.  Better for the soul that way.   Our new crew is awesome and things are going great on the farm!  All of this year’s tomatoes have been potted up...

The daffodils are blooming in speckled spots of cream and gold throughout the landscape, their delicate scent inviting you closer and giving you incentive to pause.  Mandy declared that this year, these flowers would be for all of us on the farm crew to enjoy.  They are always the first to bloom and always the first to be cut, but this year they’ll get to spend their whole time blooming exactly where they were born.  Filling our senses with their charms, instead of filling buckets for processing.  It may seem an obvious choice at a glance, but it’s an existential question every small farmer makes.  Do I deserve the fruits of my own labor?  Can I afford the fruits of...