April 15th: the race

Before I mention a word about this day, let me give some context to it: we are one month into spring. Every year, right about now, I begin to clear the flower fields and get them ready for this year's growing season. Toward the very end of April and in the early days of May, I plant the new perennials and I fill the tubs with annuals. Those are the big jobs -- there are plenty of little tasks to be done throughout the season, but these three -- clearing (and weeding), planting (and moving) perennials, planting annuals -- they fill my days completely. By mid May I am usually done and I slide then into maintenance mode: weed, maybe water, trim, deadhead, stalk. In terms of intensity then, the last week of April and the first two of May are the big gunners. I dig, huffing and puffing until my hands blister. 

But this year! Oh, this year! Nothing is as it was in years before. I scheduled my knee replacement in the last week of April (I had to -- I need to be up and running by the end of June). This means that I can do yard prep alright, but planting -- well, I imagined I would somehow hoist myself around and maybe with some magic, I'd put stuff in according to my normal schedule. This despite the warnings from the doc: do NOT scratch yourself or get dirty after surgery! Not allowed! But what's a gardener to do?  I can't NOT plant this year!

And then came this gift: a week of beautiful weather. It's as if nature was telling me -- we get it. You need to do all this before your surgery. We'll give you the sunshine, the warm temperatures. We know you'll do well by your gardens.

I already had some stuff delivered (too early, but hey, this year it turned out to be not THAT too early!) and I called my beloved daylily people (Oakes) and asked if there's any chance they could get my stuff over like... right now? 

Their box came today -- on the last day of good weather (storms and a huge cold front are on their way!). Basically, it means that I have a chance to get most everything into the ground before my new knee is plunked into my leg. But I have to work hard and dodge the weather systems! I think I can do it!

So that's the context for my day.

But as always, we start slowly. I admire the daffodils and feed the animals...

(the hyacinths are also blooming now...)

(this is Pancake -- the newest and seventh feral cat that has taken to calling the farmette "home")

(in just a few days, the landscape has been transformed!)

And then I ask Ed if he wants to go with me for this year's first Farmers Market. I have to smile -- every year, the April markets are an exercise in resilience. Farmers stand in chilly, oftentimes wet weather, customers walk briskly and buy little. This year? Oh my!

Short sleeve temperatures for sure! Huge crowds! I mean, it feels like summer!

Ed, who doesn't typically go to the market with me, is willing to come out of farmhouse hibernation today. After we do the loop around the Capitol, I think he understands why I never come back empty handed. First of all, my long time farmer friends are all there! Natalie, from her greenhouses remembering that my birthday is very soon, Bill from the spinach CSA handing over a gift pack of spinach, Mary the Bee Charmer telling me she just pulled her honey from the hive yesterday (and oh, do I need honey!!), Kyle from Roots Down asking if we came on Ed's famously ancient motorcycle. Then, too, Ed can't resist taking home a jar of picked mushrooms, and a jug of maple syrup for his morning oatmeal, and of course, his beloved cheese curds. 

(Roots Down)

(Snug Haven spinach)

(cheese curds)

(Natalie's flower baskets)

We walk away full of good stuff and good feelings.

And only when we come back do we sit down to breakfast. Treats from Madison Sourdough, because it was on the way. Sort of. And the daffodils? I did clip some weaker ones from the yard, but then I also spent $2 on a supplemental bunch from the market. Why? Because I cannot stand depleting my garden in any way! Ed doesn't have it in him to cut down trees, I don't have it in me to cut down flowers!

But by 10:30 we are done with markets, treats and breakfast and I plunge into the project of getting all the lilies in before the storms come this afternoon.

I. Work. Hard.

And I'm done! Miraculously, my perennial planting is winding down on April 15th! April 15th! 

It's late afternoon and I do take a pause (and drink mountains of cooled hibiscus berry tea -- the perfect thirst quencher!). But I do not stop. By early evening, the rain still has not come this way and I go out to the meadows to spot pull some grasses, to make room for seeds (those will have to go in after the last frost date, so not for a few weeks). Ed is still sawing up fallen trees and it strikes me that we could use another one of those big logs for yet another strawberry basket (I'm getting some more fraises de bois in a few days). We haul it over and position it by the picnic table. And now we really are done for the day.

I feel a great sense of continuity. Age is irrelevant -- I've done this (spring clearing and planting) for more than forty years now, and the growing fields have demanded so much of me, and I have given as much as I can each year, bending down at the waist, legs separated, digging, pulling until it's all ready to grow strong and flourish and flower. 

I forgive Mother Nature for coming back with snow this Monday (so long as it melts quickly!). You can't be greedy: April is not typically this splendid. That I had a week of it is a miracle indeed. I am so incredibly grateful.

with love...