Spring's Eternal Hope

Ah, Winter is a time of dreams for farmers. It is a brand new beginning, all is possibility. We prepare the cold barren ground so carefully, laying out the beds and tucking them under a thick, fluffy blanket of mulch.

Sure, I know that the weather will warm and wake up the weeds, which will rise up and be made fine and well fed from all the delicious compost, but that doesn't bother me now.

I will fill the greenhouse with carefully seeded flats, certain that every seed will germinate, that the aphids will remain at bay, the crickets won't come out at night and nip off the tiny cotyledons, leaving the teensiest green stumps, oozing sap. Certain that I will get the timing just right, and the young plants will thrive.

As we plan what will be planted, our visions are full of perfect tomatoes, bushels of green beans, bouquets of vibrant flowers. In our minds, this could be the perfect season. For now, there could be no cutworms, whiteflies, potato beetles, or squash bugs, no disease or drought or hail. It hasn't happened yet, after all.

As we consider the coming season, we think of happily buzzing bees, tall stands of sunflowers and corn, the limbs of trees bowed low with the weight of fragrant, ripening fruit.

I think you have to have a lot of hope in your soul to be a farmer, to not give up. Every season we are confronted with old problems and new. It is never easy, never not a struggle to get it all done, to solve new problems, to make a living at it all. Yet we keep on, year after year, for some reason. In the beginning, anything is possible.