On winter
In theory, fall and winter are quieter seasons…and yet, our life on the farm continues to flow from one impatiently waiting task to another.
The completed greenhouse is now a whopping 96 feet long, a size that far exceeds my current and near future production requirements (this is what happens when you find great deals on Kijiji…). Our irrigation pond has also been expanded – I am hoping that it can take the garden through whatever extreme weather we get this year.
And while I am often a lone figure grubbing about in the garden in high summer, so many of these “big” farm projects that happen in the off-season would not be possible without the loving labour and generosity of family and friends. The pond has literally been a gift of the community – from our neighbour who lent us his skill and time to dig the pond, to the local equipment rental who let us use their backhoe for next to nothing. Never let it be said that things grow out of economic clout and business shrewdness alone…
Now, with this year’s firewood harvest well underway, and the never-ending campaign against invasive buckthorn, dog-strangling vine, and Phragmites, we’ve had a full few months. And although it still looks decidedly winter-like outside, I am already digging out my seeding flats to begin 2019’s growing season…
To us humans, winter doesn’t mean much more than a cold and miserable inconvenience…but for the rest of the life on the land, winter is a yielding to rest and stillness and the important life-processes that happen during that time. Judy Collins comes to mind when she sings – I’ll learn to love the fallow way…the crystal times, the silence times – I’ll learn to love their quietness.
For us humans on the farm, it’s still a learning process…