A faster paced April 🌸

Friends,

This spring feels like it is moving along quicker than I can keep up with! All the usual seasonal markers seem to be flying by. What is going on? I think it is a combination of things: This is in fact an earlier spring than we’ve had in recent years. Many seasonal changes are simply occurring earlier than I might expect.

But this whirlwind feeling is also a product of recent changes in our family’s life too. In the early years of the farm, I was outside working all day every day, often anxiously anticipating and awaiting each new shift in the season. During those early years of farming, I paid close attention to our fields and their progress and changes because we were in the midst of major growth as we built our business and learned about our land and place. Everything felt so new and exciting in those early years. The first cherry tomato is, of course, always a celebration. But when those cherry tomatoes were the Very First we’d ever grown — that was an entirely different level of excitement.

Then, just as I became more acquainted with the ebbs and flows of our farming season, we had children. And my attention increased as my life slowed down. I lived at the pace of our children. We ambled slowly through the fields together, and I saw everything through their eyes — the world was new again. And rather than just focusing my attention on the fields, I wandered the edges with the children. We learned the names of weeds in the hedges and wildflowers in the forest. We watched birds visiting the feeders. We traced new channels in mud puddles. We welcomed each season with songs and picture books.

Of course, some of my memories are colored by nostalgia — in reality our days were very full back then too. But whether we were busy working or hanging out with the kids, our life was very focused on the outside landscape of our farm. In those years, the texture of the seasons was the foundation of our little life together. The changing flavors and sights and smells were what led us through our days. Even though it was sometimes maddening in its slowness, it was a deeply sweet time and an immersive lesson in paying attention. It was also a luxury to get to live that way, and I treasure those memories in my heart.

In my forthcoming book, Farm-Raised Kids, I dedicate an entire chapter to the joys of family seasonal living. It’s one of the chapters that I loved writing the most, because it brought back so many delightful sensory memories of those years of exploration and celebration. Other farm families I interviewed had their own special ways of observing the seasons too, and so it includes more than just our experiences.

In past Aprils, the kids and I spent hours watching bees in the apple blossoms and eagerly anticipating the first peas. But this year, the season is passing differently. The kids’ lives are busier with lessons and activities, and Casey and I are both balancing working off the farm with our work here. We’re on the go so much more, and in many ways this feels right and good for all of us.

This April we’ve still seen and experienced so much: sun and frosts and rain (spring brings it all!). The blooming of the cherries, plums, and apples. Swarms of honey bees landing in our hedges (and one in our greenhouse). We’ve mowed and harrowed. Planting potatoes and trellised snap peas. We’ve welcomed old familiar friends back to our bird feeders. It’s been a truly delightful month — just very full.

But even though our time on the farm is more purposeful and less observational these days, I try to still make time for regular walks just to watch and observe. It feels important to enter that other slower headspace and pay close attention, especially now that I know it exists and is possible. The bearing quiet witness to the world feels like an important part of loving it. Of being a part of it.

Do you intentionally make time to observe? What are you seeing in your part of the world this season?

*From the farm family archives: digging for earth worms with Rusty and Dottie in spring of 2014.*

EDIBLE event in McMinnville, Oregon!

Please join Third Street Books and me at Bierly Brewing (624 NE 3rd St, McMinnville, OR) this Friday, April 26 for their first ever “Books & Bites” event! I’ll be sharing about my experience working on Edible, and amazing gluten-free baker Ames Bierly will be serving up some kind of awesome g.f. treats featuring one or more plants from the book. (He suggested there’d be shortbread involved — yum!) Signed copies of Edible will be available for purchase too! You can get more info about the event here.

CRUSH cover art!

In more McMinnville news, I was delighted to design the April cover for CRUSH, our local bilingual arts and culture magazine. When CRUSH asked me to consider Earth Day as a topic for my cover illustration, I knew I wanted to celebrate planting season — hence a montage of seed packets … in English on one side of the magazine and Spanish on the other! You can pick up copies of CRUSH all over McMinnville, including upstairs at the public library. (Also my husband Casey contributed an article about local cycling opportunities in this same issue!)

Recently on the podcast:

Since my last newsletter, I’ve had two new Growing for Market podcast episodes drop:

Brian Campbell & Crystine Goldberg (Uprising Seeds) and I talked about their path to seeds, their vision of sustainable agriculture, their favorite unusual varieties to grow, and the profound importance of rest.
Nate Lada & Hannah Weber (Green Things Farm Collective) and I talked about their experience joining forces as farmers (along with Jill Lada and Michelle Brosius) and the power of having many invested farmers at the helm of one large, diverse farm.

You can listen (and subscribe!) on any podcast app or go to the GFM website to listen or get more info from the show notes for each episode. New episodes are released every Tuesday — my co-host Andrew’s interviews are also fascinating!

Pre-order Farm-Raised Kids now!

As a reminder, my next book is coming out this October: Farm-Raised Kids: Parenting Strategies for Balancing Family Life with Running a Small Farm or Homestead. I can’t wait to share this book with you. It’s been such a labor of love and is full of the wisdom and experiences of 25 different farm families.

You can pre-order it NOW in many locations:

Bookshop — Ordering from here will support local independent bookstores, and this is an affiliate link so I will get a small extra commission for the sale!
Third Street Books in McMinnville, Oregon — My favorite local book store! If you live local to me, this is a great place to order and I’ll be signing all the pre-ordered copies.
The Book Bin in Salem, Oregon — My other favorite local book store! Also a great choice!
Your local independent bookstore can likely order it for you too!
Amazon — Yep, the big jungle folks also have it!