Starting 2023 On A Paw-sitive Note

It’s okay if you’ve already blown all your resolutions, like not getting caught sleeping on the job. You are enough, exactly as you are right now. — Veli Belly, who is more than enough (and in fact is kind of a lot.)

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Here’s What’s Happening At Good Spirits Farm

• It’s spring seed ordering time! I love the mid-winter tradition of riffling through glossy garden catalogs, letting yourself marinate in the promise that sun-ripened tomatoes and sweet garden peas are coming soon. This weekend I’ll do a seed inventory. It’s a loathsome task, but if I don’t, I’ll always buy more seeds than I need. Heck, what am I saying? Even with doing an inventory, I always end up with too much—but the thrill of trying a new crop or discovering an extra-sweet watermelon variety always proves stronger than my self-control

  

  .(salad days are coming soon! The lamb’s ear crop may be stunted this year, though, since I never brought a ram in for fall breeding.)

• Also on tap for this weekend is putting giant tarps over the beds, in a quest to try and heat them up enough to kill weed seeds. This is called creating a sterile seed bed, and it’s crucial for slow-germinating crops like carrots and parsnips. Both sprout so lazily that, by the time they pop up, the weeds are ankle high and you can’t pull them without hurting the spindly seedlings you actually want to thrive. I use old billboards—which are basically giant vinyl tarps—for this job. Last year, a chicken tractor we put a tarp on ended up looking like a rolling Corona advertisement. I’m curious to see what the new tarps I ordered will be hawking!

  

• I have gotten exactly three eggs in the last 10 days. A combination of the hawk attack, the horrible cold snap over Christmas, and these being the darkest days of the year (light impacts laying rates) sent the chickens into self-preservation mode. I’m grateful my egg customers are patient - last week I had to send out an order for two dozen with an IOU for the final egg because I was stuck with only 23 eggs for days and days and the customer needed her order before I got that magic 24th egg!

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  Here’s What I Loved This Week

  I adored Bonnie Garmus’ book “Lessons In Chemistry.” If you’ve set a reading goal for yourself for this year, add this quick read to your list. It’s fun, funny, and heartfelt all at the same time.