Journal Archive
Regardless of when the lions and lambs are present, March has a way of swaying like a reed in the breeze. Here I discuss what I’m up to this spring, and a few new projects by e.hillman
January has become one of my favorite months. As I have grown, I have learned to enjoy this period of rest and reset. I have come to need it, just like the trees and plants do. And in it I have found rhythms of reflection and recalibration that are now so pivotal for me. I began this little tradition as a way to reconnect to family and friends we hadn’t seen, since we were living so far away. It has since become the best way to start the new year...by first looking back.
The time when the world begins to curl in on itself, like the drying leaves on the ground. The earth begins to harden in my part of the world, plants die off or begin to go into dormancy. I do it too. After the bustle of late fall preparations, my mind and body welcome the respite of the slumbering natural world.
As I mentioned in my last email, a big focus of my fall is concentrating on Zone 1, that space right outside one's own door. And work has definitely begun!
The last few weeks have certainly been a drop into the shift of seasons. The maple tree in our front yard is gaining red tones, there’s sharp contrast between morning and afternoon temperatures, and the air is full of the scent of change. The hustle to complete harvests, the turning inward, rooting in, closing up. September is full of these moments.
The common term ‘dog days of summer’ certainly hit home this month, the general feeling of heat mixed with lots to do and waning motivation to do it. But I am in a very fortunate position to be able to take time, even now when the season feels like a moving freight train.
Each month of summer is its own thing. Completely full in itself, completely different in appearance as the one before it. Where June feels light and airy, July feels the frenzied chaos, all go and little pause. This year feels especially that way with the social world coming back full force.
Scent is the most amazing time portal. When I was young, we would go to my grandparents house and help in their garden. It was massive, filled with rows and rows of sweet corn, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and squash. I can still vividly remember hunting for asparagus poking out of the grassy spot at the edge.
When I began, I purposefully titled January Farms with an ’s’. But it wasn't until a Farmers Market coordinator misprinted it without the ’s’ that I really realized why it makes a difference.
It feels like we finally emerged out of that long slumber of winter, and so suddenly, the earth is moving and active and life is everywhere.
These next few weeks will be a flurry of activity, now that the snow is melting off. Soil tests, land prep, bed formation, and countless more seeds to start. I will be waiting to see all those seedlings emerge, but all the while remembering how much is happening just beneath the soil.
Oh what a few weeks it has been!
Here, where temperatures have been more often below zero than above, I am still hard at work and dreaming of the longer days.
Hello and Happy New Year to you!
We hope to find you well and good. This past year was an exceptional one and we’d love to take a moment to share what’s been going on in our neck of the woods (literally.)
Happy New Year to all of you! I hope this letter finds you comfy and cozy heading into the New Year with happiness and hope!
We began the year still living in Nashville, searching for a house in the town of Viroqua.
It’s hard to believe that all that has happened this year was just one circle of the sun. Our life looks the same on the outside; we are still in Nashville, still raising kids, still making music. Yet under the surface our roots are forever moved by the events of this year.
A little Honey 101