love

Words cannot describe how much I love this place. This morning I went for a ride with our friend, Alison. The day started with frost on the ground but warmed up to long T-shirt temperature by the time we got out. The sky is brilliant blue, and spring has the trees in red, orange, magenta, and neon green. The pastures are coming back alive, and the woods are filled with Mayapples. The dogwoods are finally blooming, and their blossoms turn upwards toward the sunlight, like little cups to catch every drop. We saw a turkey fly into the air and soar--literally soar--through the sky, riding the wind racing up the slope of the valley. We spent a morning caving and then washed the first layer of mud out of our clothes in the creek. Marie and I put legit hoops and row cover over our cabbages, kale, and lettuce, all which look beautiful and vibrant. You can practically watch the peas and garlic growing. I had some shallots that spent the entire summer, fall, and winter in a paper bag in a plastic drawer stashed in the barn. I opened the bag, and they were growing, so I threw them in the garden, and they are growing like crazy. The half of our onions planted in the bed that spent the winter under rotting hay is twice as big as the other half the planting that were put into freshly worked ground. Behold, the power of earthworms. The bees and butterflies are back. The barn was practically vibrating with the buzz of the carpenter bees during their mating frenzy a couple weeks ago. They drill holes in the poles they used to hang the tobacco from in our barn, so there are piles of sawdust all around. The spring is full of tadpoles and newts, frogs, watercress, and Mayflies, and the toads had an orgy in my parents' pond. We have found we didn't haul nearly enough manure this winter. The greenhouse is full of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos. The artichokes are outside and finally loving life. We hosted a work party, and our wonderful friends finished our house wiring, built us a custom art light fixture, cleared hundreds of Osage, locust, and cedar saplings from our pasture and barnyard, and finished the rock work around the greywater basin. How amazing is that? Kevin is working in a factory from 6pm to 6am, five to seven days a week right now. He doesn't seem to hate it as much as I thought. This is temporary--just to earn a little extra money to have around. We are slowly gathering customers, but not nearly as quickly as I hoped. So we're thinking of taking it easy on the CSA members and seeing how much demand the two restaurants have for us. Marie and I are serving as secretaries for the Dekalb Farmers Market association. Fancy that. See you at the market! AND I found an arrowhead in our garden yesterday. I can't think of a more beautiful place to be.