Week 3, Spring 2025
Spring update: It feels like new calves are born every time we look out at the pasture. I’ve gotten to see a few just-born calves — wobbly, wet, struggling to stand up — and Eric and Margalit even got to see a birth in real time
Tragedy struck this week. Two farm journals ago, I described our strategy for keeping the apricot buds safe during below-freezing nights by turning sprinklers on overnight. So clever! So thoughtful! Alas, we were Icarus and the sprinklers were the sun. We turned on the sprinklers for another hard freeze this week… and woke up to see that the weight of all the ice on the branches had broken off several branches, and maybe even killed one of the trees.
We are in mourning.
The only silver lining is that leaving the sprinklers on all night created an otherworldly frozen landscape around the trees.
It is officially time for spring planting! (read: oh-gosh-we-really-need-to-get-our-plants-in-the-ground-already). This week, many of us spent the bulk of our work hours deep-weeding Goat Garden in preparation for planting potatoes, onions, and fennel. Sow thistle, a perennial weed with thick, looping yellowish rhizomes, is coming in from the north of the garden and slowly but surely taking over all the beds. Every shovelful we weeded this week turned up feet of sow thistle roots. It’s hard not to be awed by weeds’ ingenuity, even as we curse their relentless presence. As weeds spring up everywhere around the farm and our never-ending battle to keep beds clear begins, I am taking a moment to honor sow thistle’s cunning and tenacity.
Gavi weeds Goat Garden, with help from Jam.
As always, big weeding projects are a constant balancing act between thoroughness and speed — when you get deep in the weeds (literally), it’s easy to spend a whole morning on just a few feet of ground, and the scale of the project becomes overwhelming. But, on the other hand, if we don’t weed deeply enough and leave roots in the ground, disturbing the soil actually creates a MORE favorable environment for many weeds, and we’ve done nothing but help them along. Different philosophies around this task prompted conversations about perfectionism and its many variants.
All week, sifting through the endless weeds, we told ourselves that we would get potatoes in the ground before the end of the week. Then, as we finished prepping beds on Friday morning, a neighbor driving by told us that Good Friday is known as the perfect day to plant potatoes! Yes, we may technically have run out of time on Friday and planted on Easter Monday instead, but still — planting within just a few days of Farmers’ Almanac guidance? Victory.
Acacia, Gavi, and Patricia left early Friday morning to pick up our canvas lodge from Kinnikinnick Farms, leaving Eric and Margalit and me alone for a trio weekend on the farm. I don’t want to make the others too jealous, but let me just say — Matzo pizza was made, secrets were shared, sleepovers were had.
Classic.
Hope you all are finding joy in new beginnings wherever you are.
CEP