Independence Days Update: Spring In Force
Sharon April 5th, 2010
I know it is going to go away – the long range forecast mentions snow for next weekend, but it is hard not to feel some trust in spring once the daffodils bloom and the peepers are awake. The blog has been quiet both because we were engrossed the Passover holiday and also because we had a sudden, temporary burst of late spring in very early spring – it hit 80 here on Saturday. The last few days, besides celebrations and such have been full of things like putting the plants out to harden off a bit, digging, and cleaning out the barn after a long winter.
The pop up greenhouses are up to cover the first spring greens. The barn is gradually getting emptied. New garden beds are being built and old ones are being reframed. The driveway needs gravel and we need new fences for the goats. The first baby rabbits were born yesterday, and hens are setting. The sorrel is up and even the tips of the asparagus are poking through. The kids are running around naked and spraying each other with the hose. The clotheline is back up and things are going apace. Busy, but wonderful.
One of the things that happens in the spring is that everything comes in fits and starts and bursts of chaos – you have a week of weather like this one and have to fit in every thing that needs doing, and then you have a week of enforced inactivity when things get cold and wet again. Spring is like that – too cold, too wet, too busy…oh, crap gotta get it all done today. But who can complain. Sure, the house suffers, but who even goes into the house when it is 75 and sunny?
We’re also going into the end-of-term rush for Eric, which means that he’s preoccupied with other things, so the planning and organizing and primary work usually falls on me (although he rather chivalrously has done all the worst of the barn cleaning and pretends he enjoys it 
). I don’t mind working alone, though – or rather not alone, because the boys all help. They love to dig holes, transplant seedlings and plant seeds. Asher saves every seed he finds. They also alert me to all the latest changes – the blooming forsythia, the garter snakes coming out of their nest under the porch, the return of the barn swallows. Sometimes they make life easier, sometimes harder, but it is a family affair, this spring madness, and a delight.
Plant something: Seeded: beets, carrots, kale, mache, peas, sweet peas, alyssum, ageratum, chard. Transplanted mint, thyme, sage, garlic chives. Potted up many, many tomatoes, eggplant and peppers.
Harvest something – first sorrel of the season, first shoots of Good King Henry, eggs, milk.
Preserve something – nope.
Waste Not: Gave away much food for Passover, cleaned out chametz and fed it to various things, cleaned out barn and used manures to feed garden, used old feed bags as mulch plus the usual.
Want Not: Acquired way too much matzah. Fortunately, it lasts forever, and how can you even tell if it goes stale?
Eat the Food: I’m just not giving out matzah recipes this late in the holiday .
Build Community Food Systems: Nothing much, except for donating a lot of chametz.
How about you?
Sharon