I am so thankful for spring and all it brings! It feels good to be back outside digging in the dirt, hearing the birds sing and watching for the promise of new life sprouting forth.
We planted three varieties of potatoes this weekend: Red Thumb French Fingerling, Purple Majesty and Yukon Gold. The broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and cabbage starts are growing in our make shift “greenhouse.” The fall planted garlic and winter leeks look good, and I hope to plant onions later this week. The first week in April will be very busy with getting lots of seeds in the ground, as we plan to begin our deliveries in June.
Thankfully, three out of four of our honey bee hives survived the winter, and two appear to be very strong. We are hoping to get another queen and pull bees from the others hives to help populate and start a new hive to try to hold steady at four for this season. We shall see; last April we had two swarms, but we still had our best year ever. Looking forward to the honey!
Lastly, I thought I would share this poem by Marge Piercy that resonates with me. I am enjoying her poems from her Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy 1982.
To be of use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
