we have a plan

Across the road from us, a woman rents land and farms it as a truck farmer – growing things for the markets. She has six grown children. Her husband died last year, though I do not know how or why. You saw her here and here – I’ve paused numerous times to watch her. She works terribly hard and she has a most generous impulse – always handing me flowers, always with a smile (her English is just barely there).

She wants to farm the farmette’s acre. Veggies, flowers. She is always looking to expand, even though she has so much under her care now.







Ed’s acre is overgrown with weeds. We’ve hacked down the honeysuckle, but that’s only the beginning. It’s hellishly brutal land. Clay, with a dense network of aggressive roots. Still, she wants to farm it. And we like her.

So we have a plan: the higher portion of the land we’ll use for an orchard. The lower – we’ll let her take over if Dan, our man with the machinery, can remove enough of the roots so that she can proceed.

It’s a good use of the land.

In our own corner, we’ll plant fruit bearing trees and shrubs. We ordered thirteen trees today and six bushes. We’re very excited. I'm thinking -- unlike chickens and goats, you can leave a fruit garden alone for a while. I hear it can survive without your love and oversight for a week or two or three.






In the meantime, we're bracing for a night of cold. Good thing we haven't young trees to worry about. Not yet. But soon.