This sweet new-to-us place is coming alive. With giant beautiful blooms of all sorts that will become apples and wild plums and other delicious things. The other morning Earl woke up and said, "mama, just listen to those birds!" I've been thinking about place a lot. And what it means to been in a place and love it and know it really well. I've been transient so often in my adult life that I hadn't really bonded to a place as an adult before our last place. I think people used to be much more rooted, now we can travel and up and go wherever we want. There is a beauty in that. There is also a beauty in being in one place, invested and rooted.
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
- Seneca the Younger
I sent this quote to Mike last week. It's very windy here on this beautiful ridge, and a windy year anyway, and we are learning how to protect our charges from the wind, but also use it to our advantage. We're thankful for the wind that's teaching us to be better farmers, more of what really matters, and the raw beauty of its strength. We are definitely not in a sunny valley, but we have an incredible view, healthy, strong plants, and less bugs and disease (we hope) as the winds blow them away.
My phone camera was doing this weird postage stamp thing, and I didn't have time to figure it out. These are our newly planted beds in the glow of the sunset.
We have two functioning greenhouses, and many, many, many beautiful, healthy plants. We have a new cooler in the works in two weeks or so. We have a great new employee, Sarma, and wonderful volunteering family and friends. We have a pack shed in progress.
We've gone all in on this dream of a farm life that is dependent on our skill and experience and knowledge, yes, but also on so many other variables that are out of our control like increasingly inconsistent weather, and new soil and new geography. Now we're in the reality all that excitement last year led up to. It's proving to be something on our hearts and minds.
We're all learning how to do new things like go off-farm to work, and off-farm to childcare, and how to plant in clay-based soil. We learning how to rest in the newness and the unknown and appreciate our bits of time together. We're learning how to better ask for and find what we need. We're learning how to problem solve together in the little bits of time we have, make a decision and go with it. We're building a foundation. We're building soil, the foundation for our beings. It's uncomfortable often, and a beautiful surprise sometimes, and all, at best, building our character.
The crabapple and apple trees are stunning. They're unpruned, and need some care, but we got a lot of apples last year and they were delicious.
Nettle and ramp pizza, and dandelion green salad all harvested in our neighborhood.
Yu-um.
We hope that you will all come to our place, our new farm, so you can know it a bit too. We're a little further off the beaten path, but we'll make it worth your drive. We love it here and are finding our way. Soon we'll have loads of flowers, and vegetables too this year! Mid-June we hope to start delivering to the Twin Cities.
Mwah,
Jennifer, Mike + Earl
