The weather on the farm has been really mild the last week after a very cold, very snowy winter season. The air is moist, full of melting snow and the ground is saturated with water. It’s an interesting time of year, an interesting feeling to the air, being in the high desert typically the air and ground is dry, except in the early spring as old man winter and jack frost make their retreat and the lady of springtime moves in. Water drips, drips, drips off the eves of the house and runs into collection barrels, or collects in swalls and hugelkulturs, making the ground soft and the mud deep. Shallow puddles collect here and there in small depressions in the ground, a tease for soon the long dry summer season will be upon us.
On of my very favorite early spring activities is playing hide and seek with the earliest of my green ones, just making their very first ventures into the mild spring air. They taunt and dare the hard freezes to come back and the snows to cover them, knowing that while there may be an attempt, the strong army of winter has retreated and will bow to the freshness of spring. I’m always amazed, that under blankets and drifts of hard cold snow, life quietly sleeps waiting for its moment.
My baby Yarrow, her blooms will grace my meadow this summer and my tea cup next winter
Today I took a stroll in my orchard meadow, this little project has a special little place in my heart. It is where we have planted a variety of fruit trees creating fertility around them, not only by spreading composted material, but planting beneficial herbs, flowers and grasses at their feet. Most of my medical herbs are there, and a huge juniper tree that I lovingly call “The Mother Tree” presides over my orchard meadow, it is a place of healing, a place growing, fertility, birth and magic. I carefully looked among the roots of my darling fruit trees searching for the first signs of life, of my little herbs that are gathering strength and stretching out of a deep sleep. I was not disappointed. I found the soft feathery leaves of chamomile, the broad green of plantain, the tiniest leaves of yarrow that I had babied all last season, and of course the bold spears of daffodils making their first appearance.
Bold Daffodil, these are the first spears of about two hundred bulbs planted in the meadow, we will soon have to watch our step.
I love the first quiet days of spring, before the heavy work of preparing bed and planting seeds starts, when the world wakes up and beckons me to come watch a while.
Chamomile, was only sleeping under its blanket of snow at the foot of an apple tree
We got a dog. Her name is Tippy and we have pretty much fallen in love with her, deep, deep love. We’ve wanted a dog for a while. We thought it would be fun for the kids, and we felt a need to have a livestock guard dog, just to keep the ‘yotes and raccoons away. When we first moved to the farm we got a puppy and it ended up badly, we learned that we are not good puppy owners and that we didn’t have enough time to properly train a dog to be around livestock, so I had put the idea of a dog out of my mind, figuring that the right dog would come around when the time was right….and it did.
A little while ago we were asked how we came up with the name “Quail Run”. It’s a simple little story, not at all remarkable, but something I figure should be told, for posterity.
