Farmers in Winter
WHAT DO FARMERS DO IN WINTER, ANYWAY?
Winter is still a busy time for farmers. We break the ice in the chickens’ water bowls and gather their eggs several times a day before they freeze, too. Klaus brings the horses into the barn on snowy, blizzardy nights. Each one heads to his appointed stall where they warm each other side by side as their icy breaths curl up to the barn loft. Klaus gives them extra hay because the grass in the meadows has become short and trampled.
Insert photo of firewood on wood sled
Klaus cuts down trees to tidy up our fence lines and hedgerows and the horses pull the huge logs home to be cut, chopped and stacked for firewood. Two wood-burning stoves heat the house all winter and have quite an appetite for locust, hackberry and mulberry logs.
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When we get lots of snow, Klaus hitches up Sam and Nash to his homemade wooden plow and they scrape gentle curves of passage through the farm drifts.
We visit the Amish liveries and farmers in Jamesport to buy another plow or a part for one of the horse-drawn mowers. This is our time to clean harnesses and beekeeping equipment, repair machinery, patch up our old farm buildings, tighten up the clothesline, and scoop the poop out of the chicken coops.
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We study stacks of seed catalogs and make garden lists. Klaus organizes his planting successions so he knows which vegetable will follow the one just harvested. This keeps the soil healthy and the harvests abundant. We list our goals for the new season and research new vegetables to grow. We go to growing conferences and farmers’ meetings—scheduled in winter because none of us will show up for an afternoon of Power Point in the middle of June.
Spinach lies dormant in the garden rows. We may tuck it in with row-cover blankets on really cold nights and pull the covers back in the morning so the tender leaves can feel the sunshine during the day. The gardens have been cleared, disked and spread with compost to prepare them for spring planting.
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The last-to-ripen tomatoes are canned and dried. The jars of canned goods are arranged and rearranged in the root cellar. Next to the jars, the year’s hard cider pushes slow bubbles from its barrel and sends a sweet apple fragrance up the stone steps.
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We talk to other farmers over coffee at their kitchen table or ours, supporting each other in growing food for families; sharing successes and frustrations of the last season. We reconnect with neglected friends too, and make promises to get together more—until spring planting beckons us to our living soil, awakened from its winter rest and full of vigor and promise for a new season.
Insert photo of snow and lone yellow light
Photo of a roll in the snow goes to the top of the page
