for Kate and Laura

Love of the week

Been waiting on these beauties for several months.  Well worth the wait.  Hyacinth, four shades of tulips, icelandic poppies, and anemones this weekend!  Finally, some flowers for the masses.  (Not to mention the most beautiful green butterhead we have ever grown.)  The ranunculus have decided to hold tight for a bit, but with a 71F day in the forecast, not sure they will hold on too much longer. 

 I've gotten hold of some amazing catalogs of late.  I can go the direction of design and variety, or keep plugging away at what will make market best for us.  Kind of a tough crossroad with some tough decisions to face.  Feels like I've hit a permanent state of limbo and some clarity would be nice.  If anyone wants to send some my way I will graciously welcome it.  

Feeling for the future

How lovely to be this spider, awash in the most brilliant yellow at midday, a glorious diffusion of of our most basic source of everything---light, sunlight.  Looks like a symphony of the highest order to me, how I wish I could curl up in there for just a few moments.  But instead I walk away, confirming that we will paint Ruth's new room we are building a shade of yellow, a compromise I give myself to hold onto that beauty for a while longer.  

 Signs of spring are everywhere, even though getting through this last push of winter is a challenge for me.  I am ready for more color, that spring green that makes everything happy and cheerful and okay, that reawakening and recognizable pulsing of life that I am so longing for.  I know I shouldn't get ahead of myself, be in the moment for Gods sake, but deep within myself I am tired of being tired, tired of the latent passive energy of winter where growth is invisible and we hold ourselves tightly from the cold, withdrawing and moving ever so slow.....

 We're planning some major shifts on the farm and for our future.  So many of our dreams have come true and sometimes dreams aren't always what they seem.  So we are dreaming new ones up and it feels good.  If time is really a construct, why aren't we able to be our future selves at this moment and know all that we will know then?  I guess life wouldn't have quite the edge and excitement for us.

Frozen

 I found this little one frozen solid on top of one of our bigger mud puddles around the farm.  The puddle is probably 5' x 7' and 3-4" deep.  I have no idea how it managed to get there, smack in the middle, on top of the ice with its head or tail slightly arched as if wanting to feel the soft moonlight a touch more intimately before passing.  It's attempt at self-preservation took a slightly wrong turn somewhere.
It has been extremely cold for us and for our flowers with lots of nights in the teens, snow ice and rain.  So much rain.  And don't forget the winds!  Just plain ol' messy.  Not the best weather to hit the ground running with a big year before us.  But slowly, ever so slowly, we are making our way to the greenhouse to start seed and trying get a grip on what the hell we are doing.  What the hell are we doing?  A valid question I ask myself more than I should!

We're trying our hand at just a few sweet peas this year.  I am excited about that.  Before I got into farming they were one of my favorite flowers, but after failing tremendously my first couple attempts, they got the snub.  But maybe I'm a better grower now.  My winter flowers aren't making me feel that way, but it's got to be the truth otherwise once again I must ask myself, what the hell am I doing?

Under Attack!!!!

Just when I think everything is safe and sound and coming up roses!  We are under attack and the culprit is the devastating winter grain mite.  What?  What did I just say?  Winter grain mite????  Who even knew this creature existed?  Not I.  A tiny mm large olive colored bug with red/orange legs (what makes it so recognizable) is wreaking havoc on our ranunculus and anemones.  I am once again floored at the challenges of growing flowers. Sometimes its a walk in the park, sometimes it takes so much.  Probably doesn't help that Stuart, Ruth and I all came down with a wicked nasty flu bug and I'm coughing up my lungs as I try to control this pest.  So my plan is to spray Bullseye on them, a spinosad type OMRI approved spray, alternately with some kelp and nutritionally packed foliar sprays in the hopes that I can bring them back to healthy living.  Back to that nice healthy green.  Maybe that is why I succumbed to the flu; being so in tune with my favorite ladies I couldn't stand to feel healthy while they were being eaten alive.  No?  Too much of a stretch?  Perhaps.  Regardless, it hasn't been the best way to bring in the new year.  Let's hope I didn't wait too long on my death bed before getting out there to spray these suckers.  

Today

Practicing pea shoots in the greenhouse.  Seems like a worthwhile venture.  We want to give them to our CSA, but growing anything properly takes some trial and error.  So we are having to eat loads of them while we get it right.  Ruth isn't too crazy about them, even when we try to mix them with applesauce.  Mixed with egg is a winner. 

We just finished planting our fourth round of tulips.  1400 of them this go round.  Please get big and strong.  Please get big and strong.  If you don't, I may have to give up this mad and expensive and neurotic tulip growing habit I've developed.  

First anemones of the season.  Red is the color of love, heat, fire, passion, blood.  I used to love to wear red and feel the color on me and in me.  Is that strange?  I guess I'm getting older now cause it has lost some of its power for me.  Maybe that is how flower lovers mature.  By experiencing color phases.  

This is a picture of Ruth from a year ago and one from today.  My sweet best friend.  

Root Strong

Ah the wonders of late fall.  It has been so warm here we are having poppies bud up and dutch iris already break ground.  Yikes!!!  We have taken a nice rest and break from market that has had both its wonders and its difficulties.  We've gotten in some great family time and two day weekends are such a novelty for us we're just finally getting used to them.  I move like a turtle in the winter and wonder how I ever have the speed in the spring and summer to get it all done.  

Our winter flowers are looking really really amazing.  So far so good.  I felt like we struggled with them a little last year so this year I am overcompensating.  I am trying to do a little more advertising for the Winter Flower CSA.  It's such a great gift and deal; I hope it catches on so I can keep growing these beauties in abundance.  

Ruth is talking.  Lots of new words each day. So we have had to ban cursing.  'Momma' has not been such an awesome introduction as it is used mostly when she is in her bed crying for me to come get her when she doesn't want to go to sleep.  "Momma Momma Momma Momma" sobbing and wailing over and over again.  It's like someone is roughly twisting all of my nerve endings together when it happens. It's a good thing those kisses she has started giving us are so sweet!  

Still here!

Needed a little color pick me up this morning.  Trying to go over colors and flowers for next season.  So many choices.  I know I've been out of the loop here for a while but being camera-less means blogging is less exciting.  We hope to remedy this soon!  We cleared out a section of trees around our house and it looks SO much better.  No more claustrophobic mess of scrubby good for nothing trees.  Now it feels expansive, spacious, and beautiful and gives us some room to landscape.  I went into farming with such naivete about landscaping.  Farmers don't have landscaped houses cause it takes so much freakin' time!  But we will be one of the exceptions.  At some point in time.  We are in the process of planting all of our neglected landscape plants now.....lots of hydrangea (snowflake, snowqueen, alice and a couple limelight--more of those to be planted in the spring for cuts!), a few Japanese snowbells, a couple Stewartia something or other trees, a fringe tree, a kousa dogwood, a few serviceberry trees, some redbuds, five fig trees and three asian persimmons, a mulberry (excellent selection for purple birdshit everywhere!), and several others I can't remember.  Stuart and I have a lot of shoveling to do as it's too wet to get the tractor into the section that just got cleared, so no auger for us.  Let's hope they all live!!!