Learning to roll with it

This season finally feels underway!  As we mentioned previously, this spring has been a true test of patience and re-planning.  The wet, cool weather has thrown our well thought out seeding and transplanting plans up in the air and we are forced to monitor the weather constantly, using small windows of opportunity to get done anything we can.  Many of our farm friends around the state are in the same boat and we are all just having to learn to roll with the punches this spring.

So what happened at the last week?  Here it is in a nutshell . . .

Most of the fields dried out last Tuesday, we called grandma for Abe-watching reinforcements, disced two fields, the tractor started spewing power steering fluid, went for the second tractor, it wouldn’t start (it is a 1953 after all!), grandma helped drag the tractor behind the truck, Nick popped the clutch and got  it going, prepped the potato fields, tractor broke down again, called a farmer mentor, got  it running like new, finished the field prep, planted potatoes, onions and leeks, fixed the first tractor (when a gasket goes, it goes!), another round of rain, waited for fields to dry out, compost arrived, worked on irrigation, fields dried out, field prep done, transplanted (brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, kohlrabi), seeded (peas, carrots, beets, chard, spinach), put up deer fencing, Abe playing in the stroller, more deer fencing, Abe sleeping in the stroller, more deer fencing, Abe crying in the stroller, finished fencing, another gentle rain, cleaned up the shop, Joan’s first Mother’s Day, a huge thunderstorm, hail! (small in size and quantity – thank goodness!), Joan jumped up in the middle of the night to check the plants, all was well, seeded and uppotted the next round of plants in the greenhouse . . . and now we wait for the next dry window to do it all over again!

There is one thing you can say for certain about farming . . . it is never the same every year and it is NEVER boring.