As soon as the light of the emerging dawn bounces off the polished cheek of the tea kettle, I’m ready to begin the early chores, the dawn of spring on the farm.
First, the usual: the morning fire, haying the horses, cooking a pot of rice for the chickens. Checking the temperature outside, the prospect for sap flowing by afternoon, the temperature in the hoop house, the plan to move flats of seedlings there as soon as possible from the warmth of the habitation. Snow flakes are falling furiously. It is cold this morning, but later in the day, you just know that the force of spring warmth will cut through the ice and soften the powdery snow into mush. The maple trees will let their sweet sap into the buckets, the contents of the buckets will make it to the sugar house thanks to the team of horses, and the fire will be lit in the brick arch under the sap pans to boil away in a cloud of yellow steam, reducing the sap to golden syrup.
All of a sudden there is everything to do. Continuously moving firewood into the sugar house, collecting sap, hanging the last buckets on the big maples further into the woods, sending off the final seed order. The world is waking up — the world that’s your farm, that is — and from now on there will be more to do with every subsequent day. Any day now the horses will start to lose their heavy winter coats. You will know from the clouds of horsehair that get in your eyes and mouth as you drive them into the wind. You yourself will be mistaken for a fur-bearing creature with a thatch of horsehair accumulating on the front of your sweater. It will get so bad that if you can keep their hair out of the soup you are making, it will be a miracle.
By night the owls are heard courting passionately, by day the jays and chickadees have changed their tunes. While the blanket of snow appears permanent, resolute, you know its days are numbered, and you start to calculate how many weeks until the rhubarb sends up her first fat shoots. Then when will be the first pie? When do you dare sow seeds in the hoop house? How many weeks until you begin spreading compost over the vegetable ground with the mares? You listen now for the sounds of the robins returning, for the chatter of the red-winged black birds gathering in the marsh. Deep winter lulls you into believing you’ll have all the time in the world to mend, sharpen, repair and organize. And now you realize it’s only a matter of weeks before full-on spring work hits you like a big pizza pie.
Amore. Love. Life. All of you is engaged, not a morsel to spare. Without complete engagement and commitment you will not succeed. Thankfully, you can experience the fruits of your labor in small ways right here on the farm. Your heart is heavy with sorrow for the many sufferings in the world, with so little we are able to do to help. Thoughts and prayers flow from you like a river, and no matter what riches befall you today, you would give anything to hand them over to those whose lives are hanging by a thread.
With all your heart, you wish the huge problems of the world could be healed by your own might and main, the usual ways you handle your every day. Would that we renew our courage and our willingness to cohesively act for goodness in the world. For this, we can only hope and pray.