Peaceful Acres Lavender Farm

I have come to a realization today about some things.

Weather I consciously do it or not, there is extreme worry that lives inside of me pretty much as soon as the last frozen branch melts. The thoughts of the farm coming back fully alive brings a lot of contentment, and excitement into my being, and no matter how much I absolutely love the amazing awakening of the earths spring cycle, there is always that anxiety lurking within, wondering how it will all get done.

Every spring for the past several years, spring is not only a re-awakening but a new project, a new idea brought to life before my eyes. As I dug with my shovel into the fresh smell of dirt, and the familiar stinging poke of the thistle in my hand, I realized it had all swung right back into place again. I did not have to force it all there, I did not have to plan every moment and make sure it was all being accomplished; I didn’t even have time to use up all of that new anxiety about a new season beginning.

Because of my husbands amazing ability to make anything happen, here I was gently covering up the last purple star pepper for this round of plantings. The mounds were created so carefully with his thoughts and the help of Jason’s labor (Jason is our earthship biotech living at the farm, and has saved me so much of the normal muscle work I use around here lately). The mounds were built, some covered and we carefully sprinkled them with their weighed out nutrients to start them off well.

Mike got the holes ready on the covered ones. Except for three of the new rows in this new half acre, I had now planted all of the new baby plants myself, and I will always love planting and watching every day for any form of growth, it is such a gratifying process.

The lavender fields have now both had their spring dose of Nitrogen. The baby field undertook a lot of harsh weather for their first year. Ice rain coated their delicate leaves, and our Ohio Hurricane tipped them slightly up and out of their cozy mounds. They look a little weary but we have a few strong beautiful bloomers, and I am just waiting on all of them to soak in their nitrogen and make a marvelous come back!The large field was not so fun to do this year.

A few weeks ago I spent many hours pulling irrigation, stretching and moving weedgaurd, fixing broken attachments, unclogging drippers, and had the fields all ready for their fertilizing. Yesterday I was making some candles and got the call to come and check the drippers, line up irrigation, etc. Simple, I did this already, just small adjustments are needed, I walked up the field for my quick check and … oh, 2 lines had decided to pop off of their connectors, oh so conveniently when the fish emulsion was running through the lines. I jumped down on them pulled with both of my arms strength and popped them back on. Since the hose from the ground connects to this point and the field hose connects also, two spots on each one decided they did not want to stay. The first fix held them long enough to do a quick check and unclogging of the other rows that were behaving. Jason scraped off the top layer of fly and fish soaked mud, put it into a wheelbarrow, then, pop, again lovely fish smell everywhere. Mike helped me clamp one, but I can not even tell you how many times these darn things kept coming off. (Although darn is not quite the word that kept coming to mind)Pushing the hose back on involved pushing at a flow of water, so this easily creates a nice shower like effect. Head to toe fish smell, which takes several showers to get off. Needless to say I was about 45 minutes late picking up our youngest daughter from her newfound half day kindergarten, soaked in fish smell, and hoping none of the other kids would be with their friends in the hallway and get made fun of because of their fish mom.

Oh another beautiful day of farm life. I do admit, I was very overwhelmed, Peaceful acres was not feeling very peaceful yesterday.

However, today, like every day, is a new day. A new day of learning every possible good thing out of every situation, and looking at everything around like it is the first time we have ever witnessed it. I love that about spring. It amazes me how the earth goes dormant, how it is all still there somehow, but in a different state, and gets reawakened in the spring. I feel the same thing happens to all of us, and we reawaken and are meant to grow just like all of the earth around us. We just hopefully have taken in everything we possibly can to learn from it and grow from it so we have a basis and foundation to sprout up from.

With the first season festival this past Saturday, and my first farm market attendance for the season tomorrow I am excited about what this new season will bring.(I can tell you it did bring back the barn swallows, but I am confident they are on agreement with me that they can not scare away all of the other birds, and I will keep you posted on this very soon)

~Peace Love and Lavender ~