>The Hands of Hope

>One aspect I’ve always enjoyed about farming is the opportunity to make a fresh start every day, as well as every growing season. This is especially true after last year, in which it felt like every day we were just barely hanging on and getting by. I just found this quote, credited to “The Duke”, as in John Wayne, but I don’t know if it’s from a particular movie.

“Tomorrow is the most important thing. It comes in to us at midnight very clean, it’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. The hands may end up stained with blood and sweat but they are the hands of hard work. The hands of hope. I hope those hands are strong enough for the tasks that lie ahead.”

It sure feels like spring lately. What a beautiful February we’ve been having. Chilly at night, but what beautiful sunny days. As a mom, I couldn’t have hoped for better weather for a week of school vacation—Presidents’ Week. At least I could force the kids to play outside for the afternoons. It’s hardly even been a struggle. I also couldn’t have hoped for better weather for farming. We’ve started getting ground worked up, and I ordered seed potatoes and onions to be shipped next week. With a bit more luck, we’ll have the ground ready this week and be planting on time, for a change. (The ideal time for potato planting is March, but usually it’s too wet to plant until April. Last year because of the rain, and the May snow, we didn’t get planted until June–much too late.)

Today we planted the big greenhouse full of salad greens, so that we can start our spring shares with tender greens. Mike put down fertilizer and lime, and rototilled it in, softening the soil into a nice seedbed. It was actually hot inside, and the humid air was full of the warm, delicious scent of dirt. We’re working on the two smaller greenhouses so that we can get some early peas planted. There should be time to get the peas grown and picked in time to set out the tomato and pepper plants in May. I’d also like to fill a greenhouse with sweet potato plants, but we’ll have to see how that goes.

The blue herons started coming home last week. Several pairs have returned to the trees down the street, and two pairs (or four of last year’s young) have returned to the trees above our house. No sign of nest refurbishing or building yet, but they are noisy and we are happy to have them back.