“The year is young and fickle and changes her clothes three times a day. Sun, then clouds. Ice, then heat. But her layers of brown are steadily giving way to fresh shades of green. The garlic is up and there are new shoots of sorrel and nettle, and the chives are tall and bright.
Yesterday, Mark and I walked the fields in the morning. Way too wet. I walked again in the afternoon. The top layer of the drained fields had dried to cracking, and felt warm and soft enough to invite a brief, supine rest. So temptingly workable there, and yet just a few inches down the soil was corpse-cold and wet enough to wring water from a fistful of it. Much as we wanted to hitch a team and harrow a few acres, we waited, as haste now would pay back in soil compaction for the rest of the season. Maybe this weekend.
The whole world seems impatient. We heard the spring peepers singing a defiant song on Wednesday evening even though the culverts are still blocked with tubes of ice, and Mark and Miranda took a quick dip in the farm pond one afternoon – a symptom of their fervent belief in spring rather than a reflection of the actual conditions…. “Continue reading this Essex Farm Note.
Related articles
- Essex Farm: Peepers (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
- Spring Song: Frogs of the Adirondacks (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
- The Essex Sunburst (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
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