Okay, so this isn't really a welcome message, but it is what has been on my mind lately. I think I will be able to get to the welcome message once I share these thoughts with all of you. Somehow it seems more honest.
It is easy to get down as a farmer. Something is always struggling, and at times, it seems the whole frame blurs and all that I can focus on are the seedlings that got washed out by the rain or the cauliflower that is wilting in the unseasonable heat and fail to see the many other vegetables, fruits, and herbs that are flourishing. The other night, feeling my lens focus in on a few of our spring frustrations, I turned to The Tall Woman, a point of reference which helps to ground me and readjust my lens. In our world full of distractions that seem to so often take us from what is important as opposed to give us more time for them, I am grateful for Wilma Dykeman's straightforward telling of Lydia McQueen's life in Appalachia in the late 1800s.
There is a point in the story when Lydia McQueen, having just past a difficult winter alone with her children at her mountain farm, reflects on spring - on the rhythmic coming of life that those of us who experience seasons witness every year. Many find a sense of renewal in spring, a fresh start; however, I find comfort and inspiration in Dykeman's slightly different take on the coming of spring. At this point in the story, McQueen concludes of spring and herself, "Her spirit was the same. Come what would, she would remember that spring, too, always came again."
When I walked amongst the fields this morning, I had to admit to myself that this will not be our best spring crop. The heavy rains have made it difficult for early direct seeded crops (especially arugula, radishes, and spinach). The peas and cole crops have struggled in our extremely warm winter and spring. I would like things to be doing better - more like the beets and chard who seem to have found their paradise. But in my walks and reading of The Tall Woman, I am reminded that this is life. Some springs bring bountiful crops, and some bring struggle. Some springs are for arugula, and some are for beets. The hope of the farmer (and for man) is that next spring may be better - or maybe even this May.
However, what if Wilma Dykeman and Lydia McQueen and all those farmers who have come before us are wrong. Farmers and therefore all of us depend on nature's cycles and rhythms. I tend to be a person of action. I may worry about a lot of things, but I try not to get lost in thought. If I am going to ponder something, I'd at least like to get the broccoli hoed or the lettuce transplanted while I am at it. Although we plan the farm out over the winter week by week, vegetable by vegetable, I think we would both say that at this point it has become more second nature. Something in me just knows that when the beets are yay high we should be planting corn and when I no longer need a long-sleeve shirt in the morning it is time to plant summer vegetables. However, this spring, I have found myself registering one of those mental messages as they were triggered by some observation and then realized things were off. The rhythm around which we have operated over the last nine seasons no longer applied. OR maybe it did. Maybe we should have been planting tomatoes two weeks ago when some sign triggered my mind to think it was tomato planting time, but at the time, our tomatoes were mere seedlings - many weeks from field planting. As farmers, we will adjust. The past four seasons here (all very different) have required constant tweaking, but I do worry about the implications of these shifts for all of us. I worry enough to find myself standing in a field on a warm, sunny day in late March pondering all of this when in years past we would have been scrambling on a day like today to plant our last spring crops. This season, however, our spring crops have been planted for weeks, and we are ready to harvest.
These rhythms that Lydia McQueen and all of those who have lived in these hills and valleys have depended upon seem to be shifting, and I'm not sure that any of us are really ready. As spring came, Lydia McQueen found strength to turn back to her life's work - to take care and at the same time make productive her little plot of land, her growing flock, and her family. Although these changes have thrown us slightly off kilter, they have also called us to focus on our work, or perhaps better said they have confirmed that very work.
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