Parker Palmer wrote this about Spring: "I will wax romantic about spring and its splendors in a moment, but first there is a hard truth to be told: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. But in that muddy mess, the conditions for rebirth are being created."
Mud Season here at Little Farm was pretty dramatic this year. Throughout late March and virtually all of April, it seemed like we had day after gloomy day of rain. Joe keeps track of such things in connection with our solar array. Over half the days in both March and April were overcast, most with precipitation. Puddles and pools of water and mud were everywhere. I was constantly humming Rick Charette’s song: Mud, mud, I love mud. I’m absolutely positively wild about mud…” even as I put all of my hope in the rhyme, “April showers bring May flowers."
Now it is May, and we seemed to have turned the corner on the winter and mud seasons. I recently raked all the sand spewed from the plows during our April snow storm that had settled on a patch of daffodils I maintain by the road. The bulbs had started to sprout and were glad to see the sunlight. They are in bloom now as are the daffodils in my perennial garden.
I have uncovered the Wedding Gardens I made for Paddy and Megan and Tim and Viv and am getting ready to rejuvenate and prepare a bed for the Granddaughters’ Garden I will put in later in the Spring.
Rebirth really is happening all over Little Farm. The maple syruping season is well over (unfortunately, not very productive this year), and the trees are starting to bud. I should plant peas this weekend. Our fruit trees are budding. Our two plum trees look as if they will be covered in blossoms in a couple of weeks. Hopefully that means fruit later this summer! We’re keeping our fingers crossed that a late hard frost won’t ruin our plum, peach, and apple harvests – like it did last year. The grass is greening up, but we’ll put off mowing as long as possible – in order to let the dandelions flower for the bees.
Speaking of bees, I installed a new package of bees a couple of weeks ago, and they seem to be taking well to their new hive home. I’ll be watching the other hive closely, so they don’t swarm. Maybe I will be able to split that hive this year – and still get some honey!
My fingers are crossed that we are now past the boot-sucking mud and muck time and well into the warmer days of spring. I’ll have to get my hummingbird feeders out soon. We love to watch the little fellas as we sit on our deck for dinner on warm summer nights. But maybe I’m getting too far ahead of myself…..
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