laura ingalls goggles

it is the middle of april. I am wearing my long johns. I thought we were done with that.

4 of 5 hens agree: it is too freakin' cold.
5th hen could not be found for comment.

yesterday eric and I scurried to cover all the flowering fruit trees and berry bushes before the cold settled in. he was ready to give up after the first one, but I insisted. jamin and I have been reading the "little house" series for months now. we've worked our way through the original series and have moved into laura's daughter's stories. it makes me look at the whole world with laura ingalls goggles. (I read in some michael pollan book that you should only eat food that your great-great-grandmother would recognize as food. laura ingalls has long been my dietary measure, but re-reading these books with jamin makes me question that decision. there is a lot of salt pork and cornbread in their diet, and not a whole lot else...) we are hardly real farmers. our life does not depend on our pear trees bearing fruit. in fact not much in our world would really change if we didn't get a single blueberry this year. same goes if our hens just quit laying. but my laura ingalls goggles make me remember that pioneer spirit, that homesteader mindset that makes me say "do it anyway, and see what happens. work hard and make it count."

I am actually a pretty terrible farmer. I am not even that great at just being a farmer's wife. seriously. eric leaves the kids and I one or two "farm chores" every day, but they have to be really easy things that, one, I will be motivated to do, and, two, I can't really mess up. I have trouble telling plants apart. this is super embarrassing for me to admit, but I cannot be counted on to know the difference in berry bushes and azaleas or cabbage and kale. the kids usually set me straight before I water the wrong thing ("didn't papa say to water the peas? that is just plain dirt, mama." thanks, cora.) and if it is cold outside, forget it. if it is cold I can't be counted on to do the jobs that I actual am capable of like feeding the chickens or messing around in the compost.

but it turns out I am a total boss at covering fruit trees. I hung those bedsheets without breaking a single branch or shaking off any flowers. and the blooms are all still there, even after our dip into the low twenties last night. of course only time will tell what fruit those trees will produce, and even then it may have nothing to do with my expert covering skills. that is the way gardening goes.

it was a lovely meditation, really, covering those trees. offering protection to something forced to deal with unusual circumstances. prayers tumbled out as I unfurled those bedsheets: one jamin claimed from the camp lost and found, one that served as curtains in our foster daughter's bedroom, one eric bought from ikea in calgary when I had shingles in my eyes, one from the set my mom bought in 1973 when she went off to college. it is sobering to have no control over the weather, to acknowledge its power and mystery. and it is grounding to know we will do the best we can and know the rest will happen just the way it should.

my word for the year is "season," an acknowledgement of the rhythm of my life, but as eric farms fulltime this year it has become a study in the rhythm of the world around me as well. I long so much for summer, but there are still lessons to learn from the cold it seems. let's hope I have learned them this time around so we can move on to warmer days.