SPRING Begins

20 Mar SPRING Begins

As author Leo Tolstoy once said of the season, “spring is the time of plans and projects.”  It seems this last week we have been riding the line between the seasons–winter and spring–and are now comfortably able to put many of the winter plans for the farm into fruition with the arrival of longer, sunny days. We are thrilled to have completed some maintenance projects such as digging out and re-graveling the “pack-out” where we wash the veggies, improving walkways and entrances, and doing alot of cleanup around the defrosting farm grounds.

Farmers Chris and Brian digging out a new path for pick-ups!

But we weren’t the only ones who took notice of the season transition! Dandelions are popping up, the garlic is emerging from its winter bed, and the killdeer are at their old antics again.

Mama killdeer and first hatching

GARLIC!!!

The greenhouse is also looking quite spring-like with the rows of fledgling plant life in all shades of green, pink and purple.

Local bird expert and conservationist, Augus Mirabella, came out to the farm to put down woodchips to ready the bird box for a special type of regional bird–the American Kestrel. American Kestrels do not build nests, they lay in open cavities, hence why we have a kestrel box to encourage them. Their numbers have declined over the years in this area, possibly due to conventional farming practices whose chemicals have found their way thru the food chain to these birds of prey. (Another reason never to use rat poisoning) Here’s hoping BGF can be a sanctuary for them!

Well, that is all for now. We wish you all a wonderful day on this Vernal Spring Equinox! I’ll leave you with another quote about the season from Tolstoy, which was found in a lovely letter he wrote to his grandmother….

“Babushka! It’s spring! It is so good to be alive on this earth, for all good people and even for such as I. Nature, the air, everything is drenched in hope, future, a wonderful future. … When I think about it more soberly, I know perfectly well I am nothing but an old frozen potato, rotten, cooked and served up with a tasteless sauce full of lumps, but the springtime has such a powerful effect on me that I sometimes catch myself imagining I am a plant that has just opened and spread its leaves among all the other plants and is going to grow up simply, peacefully and joyfully on the good earth. … Make way for this wonderful plant that is filling out its buds and growing in the spring.”