The Hickories: Newsletter

Dear All,

     Anne Lamott wrote in her novel about faith that the two best prayers she knows are “Help me, help me, help me!” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”  To be blunt, those are probably the two prayers I know best, too. In farming, as I face both the constant obstacles to be overcome and a vaulting, clear November sky, alternating prayers of desperation and gratitude are with me all day long.  

Dear All,

Dear All,

     This is neither the first nor the last of the hurricanes that have rattled the timbers of our old barn.  The hickories and sugar maples that tower over our little crops have seen the likes of Irene, and her much bigger siblings, many times before. So as the barns and forests stood their ground against the winds and uprooting rains, our transient mob of farmers, crops, and livestock took shelter behind their shields.  I emerged agog to see how much was, indeed, not damaged.  Greenhouses are standing, even a fair number of our apples clung on their boughs and surfed out the storm unscathed.  To see the bright colors of the eggplants, sunflowers, and sweet red peppers perking up again in the sunshine: that is my rainbow after this flood.

Dear All,

Hello All,

        Blossom time is a critical and fragile one on a farm – the blossom is the ovum, every fruit and every seed in every fruit starts its life in the tiny chamber at the base of the flower.  Blossom stage is the only moment for the pollinators to make their move – without them, no fruit.  Most trees blossom before they are fully in leaf, so the energy they use to set their blooms was held safe in the trees roots from last autumn.  If their energy is sapped from a harsh autumn or winter, they will not blossom strongly the following spring.  On a path so frought with danger, it’s a miracle that any one blueberry or peach makes it through Nature’s gauntlet.  But that is exactly it, isn’t it?  It is a miracle.