You know how farmers are, eternally pessimistic and complaining about the conditions every single year. In that, I am not a natural farmer because I tend to be an optimist and forever look on the bright side. Some people find that annoying.
That said, this is looking like a bumper crop year in my part of Michigan. We had a delayed season, with cool wet weather dragging on and on, then suddenly a nice warm sunny week or two. This seems to have been just what the farm was waiting for. The prairie has sprung up in record time, growing noticeably every day, about a foot high already. The orchard bloomed profusely and no frost came to foil its plans. The asparagus got going all at once and grows 4-5 inches a day. I feel renewed as well, with hope for success everywhere I look.
If I keep the fungal and insect infestations back with judicial spraying every two weeks, we will get bushels of apples and peaches, as opposed to last year’s record of three knarled peaches and seven little apples. Look at these two photos and see if you can identify the baby fruit.
Big thunderstorms are predicted for this afternoon, so maybe there is chance for disaster yet, but as I said, I am an optimist. I am also on a new project now, re-upholstering a family heirloom. My grandpa’s rocking chair, purported to have rocked my father to sleep almost a hundred years ago, is due for some love. I have never done this before, but I’m up for the challenge. I turned to YouTube for guidance and I believe I can stumble through it.
As you can see, I am well into the demolition stage and ended the day with bloody knuckles. Today I will wear gloves. It is interesting to me that this chair, last reupholstered twenty-two years ago (I found where they tucked a penny into the batting as a keepsake), still smells on the inside like my grandpa’s house and it took me back to those memories. I get a good feeling from bringing things back to life.
I always feel restored, myself, from having projects to look forward to — at least the pleasant ones. The overdue phone calls and bill-paying not so much. When I have a goal and a strategy I dreamed up on my own, I am in my element.
So, off to work! HI HO.
Bluestem Pond 