Yesterday, I found a woodcock roosting in the brushy edge of our sheep pasture. It’s been years since I’ve seen one there. We used to hear them every spring as kids, but they lost their favorite field several years ago, and they’ve been slow to return. They are quite particular about where they choose to spend the summer, so I am very pleased we made the grade. They need brushy pastures for roosting, young forests for nesting, moist woodlands for feeding and fields for courtship.

In late spring, after the peepers wind down and well before the cicadas start serenading, I instinctively listen for the male’s call. Birding experts quaintly refer to it as the “woodcock’s peent,” but I think it sounds more like a monosyllabic nasally Russian ‘nyet!’.

My parents instilled in us a great love for woodcocks and especially the male’s funky, albeit very successful, courtship display. What greatness he clearly lacks in melodic beauty, he more than compensates for with the bravado and enthusiasm of his “sky dance.” Just before sunset, we’d all sit quietly (or as quietly as 5 kids can sit) and wait for the dance to begin, while my parents drank a glass of whatever it was that parents drank.

The woodcock starts the show on the ground, just as daylight begins to fade, with ten to twenty peents and then, as if shot out of a cannon, he rockets skyward in ever ascending spirals. A couple hundred feet in the air and almost out of sight, he pauses and then plummets groundward, as if mortally wounded, leveling out dramatically at the last minute, and landing safely, only to start it all over again.

Even when he’s alone foraging for worms, it seems he dances to his own beat. Stepping one foot forward, and another step back, his rhythmic movements presumably make vibrations which cause the earthworms to instinctively move away, thus revealing their location. His long bill easily spears into the mud, extracting his prey. His foraging stutter step might be perfectly logical to adults, but to us kids it sure looked like he was line dancing to a Country Western tune. We imitated him endlessly and could always get my mom to laugh when we, wherever we happened to be, broke into an impromptu woodcock dance.

The male, having chosen our pasture as his territory, will attract several females to spend the summer with us. They will hopefully return each year to dance, breed, lay their eggs and raise their young.

Our regenerative farming style of pasturing in the woods, and having trees in our pastures, provides them with the habitat they need. I don’t know what the sheep or chickens think but I for one am very happy to share the pasture with them, and I hope that they know they will always be welcomed.

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We have been weaning our bottle-fed lambs, which is a long, loud, and annoying process. We have them in the pasture closest to our house so we can keep an eye on them and make sure they are making the transition okay. The lambs happily go about their independent lives until they hear our voices, or see us walking by, then the bellowing and the hoof stamping begins. They clearly have no intention of being weaned.

Watching their histrionics, we could easily be convinced that they were on the verge of starvation - if only we hadn’t just witnessed them happily racing around the pasture playing and spending hours contentedly grazing by themselves. When I can, I walk the long way around our house to avoid being seen and stirring up their thunderous complaints.

The front of the house, though, has been taken over by a robin who built a nest on the transom over our front door. The porch roof provides her with excellent protection from rain and predators, but she now takes issue with us using that door. She has two hatchlings, of which she is understandably protective, so we are constantly being divebombed and scolded by her unless we remember to use a different door.

Our bluebird hatchlings in the back yard are doing well, and we do our best to not disturb those parents as well.

Happily, we have a third door, which is out of sight from the lambs, and far enough from the robin, and bluebirds that we can use it unmolested and guilt free. We do however have to be sure to keep that screen door firmly latched since one of our more demanding chickens has discovered that if it’s open, she can often find me somewhere within.

It has been an absolutely wonderful spring, and we are so incredibly lucky to live somewhere we can watch it unfold all around us. However, we are running out of doors, and it is quite possible that if this summer is a continuation of this spring, we will soon be climbing in and out of windows just to gain access to our house without disrupting the clan.

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The poem begins “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”- but really, it’s springtime where hope truly dwells.

· A pregnant ewe heading to the barn, looking for a quiet place to lamb.

· A handful of seeds scattered in the wind - searching for fertile ground.

· A honeybee coming out of our empty hive, perhaps scouting it out before a swarm.

· A broody hen sitting on her nest, threatening me whenever I dare walk by.

· The serenading of lovesick frogs, desperately looking for a mate.

· A clutch of eggs in the robin’s nest by our door.

· Our boisterous bottle-fed lamb - on the verge of being weaned.

· A pair of bluebirds, and their hatchlings getting ready to fledge.

· The return of the swifts nesting in our chimney yet again.

· Our sow looking more and more pregnant every day.

Everything is in a holding pattern, waiting perhaps for a gentle rain, the warmth of the sun or just the right time, to bring it all to fruition. Springtime, indeed, holds eternal hope within a farmer’s soul! And where there is hope, there’s comfort and joy.

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Despite my very best efforts to get out of it, last week I found myself talking to a large group of third graders about “Sustainable Farming.” I was pleasantly surprised by how well it went, but then again, my expectations had been rock bottom.

When I asked the kids what sustainable meant to them, one boy said, “It’s having a nice place to live.” I agreed and said “Yes, in a way it is. I think that planet Earth is a very nice place to live. In fact, I feel lucky to live on such a nice planet and I’d like to take good care of it so when it’s my time to pass it on to you, it’s just as nice as when I found it - if not better. And I hope that when it’s your time to be in charge of this planet, that you take good care of it too.”

I told them that my definition of “sustainable” is the ability to keep doing something. I explained “After I get a good night’s sleep and a healthy breakfast, I’m full of energy and can work really hard and get a lot of stuff done. But by noon I start to slow down and if I don’t get lunch, I stop being able to work very well. I just get more and more tired until I completely run out of energy. What I’m doing is not sustainable and that’s how I think the planet is feeling right now. It’s getting very worn down and adults need to start taking better care of it. Someday it will be your job, so I am glad you are learning about it now because when you are older, you’ll have lots of choices to make, everyday kinds of choices.”

I said “My friend Timothy cares so much about planet Earth and about you kids, that he sold his car and now he either rides his bike or walks wherever he wants to go. He knows that driving a car creates a lot of pollution, so he stopped driving. Can you imagine how much energy he saves and how much pollution he isn’t making? I think he’s amazing - but I can’t do that, I have too many places to go and I’m always in a hurry. I think that it’s a wonderful choice for him, though, and I’m very proud that he is my friend.”

I asked the kids what town they were from.

They said “Vernon”.

I asked “Did you all ride your bikes here?”

“No” they said.

Did you walk? I asked.

“No” they said.

I asked, “How long do you think it would take to walk here from Vernon?”

“11 years” one girl said definitively.

I allowed as how I didn’t think it would take that long, but it would definitely take a long time, so riding the school bus was probably a really good choice.

I said I try to farm in such a way that I create as little pollution as possible. That’s why I have grass fed sheep – all they ever eat is grass. I have to take very good care of the fencing, and pastures to keep them safe and to make sure there is always enough grass for them to eat. It would be a lot easier if I just kept them in a barn and bought food for them from somewhere else, but it would have to be brought to the farm in a big truck – and that causes pollution.

I said “my friend Carol has sheep and doesn’t have enough grass, so she feeds them grain that’s grown in Iowa. It takes a lot of driving to get that grain to her – and all that driving causes pollution. My friend Timothy would probably ride his bike to Iowa to pick up the grain if he had sheep - but I think I found an even better solution. I found a home for my sheep at Hill-Stead, where there is a lot of grass. They have so much grass in fact, that if my sheep don’t eat it, someone has to mow it! So, I think I made a very good choice, and Hill-Stead is very happy.”

I said as adults we all get to make choices about the way we live, and farm and my hope is that when they are adults and in charge of making the decisions – that they think about what they are doing and make the best choices they can.

I have no idea what the kids took away from my talk - if anything at all. They were unusually quiet, which I took to mean they were either thinking about what I said or plotting something nefarious. Either way I left feeling proud of the way Anne and I farm, and the choices that we’ve made. Somehow, by taking the time to explain myself in overly simplistic terms to a group of children, it became that much clearer to me as well. Indeed, it really is about having a nice place for everyone to live and about leaving it better than we found it for the next generation.

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Everything I know about fashion I learned from my mom. She wasn’t a stickler for rules, and she was really good at letting us find our own way, but I can still hear her voice gently guiding me, “the seams go on the inside, and the tags belong in the back.” To this day I do my best to heed her advice, but I’m a farmer, I wake up before dawn and when I get dressed in the dark, I figure I have a 50/50 chance of having the tag where it’s supposed to be - the seams though pretty much do what they want. But surely the most important lessons I learned from her were the ones she never taught. She never preached about being a good, ethical and kind person, she just was. She never instructed us on how to be a good neighbor and a responsible member of society, she just lived it. She was kind, honest, and true and we learned from watching.

Our chickens, on the other hand, are anything but kind. They can be very judgmental, and anything even remotely out of the norm, they chase out of the coop, beat up - and kill if given half a chance. Baby chicks pay attention and learn how to stay alive. The moms scratch at the ground and when they uncover something absolutely delicious like a slug or a worm, they step back and let the chicks polish it off. Having observed their mom, they quickly learn to scratch at the leaves themselves, uncovering all the food they need to survive.

Sows are extraordinarily patient with their piglets; I’m often amazed at what they put up with – but only if it doesn’t involve food. They are, luckily, very predictable and straightforward, and the little ones catch on quickly. Moms eat first; piglets beware.

Mother ewes are in general extremely attentive, although first time moms sometimes forget they are moms and need a little reminder. Fair enough! The older ewes often lamb on pasture, or in the corner of the barn and don’t need any help from me. But I lock the younger moms up in our “maternity ward” with their lambs for a day or two until the bond is solid.

Ducklings are born knowing how to swim, but they need their moms to groom them in order to spread the oils that waterproof their new feathers. All the moms in the world, however, can’t teach a male duck to quack. They are born unable to quack and remain quackless throughout their lives. I am certain, though, that if I were born a male duck, I’d figure it out. Because what’s the point of being a duck if you can’t quack?

This Mother’s Day, as always, I’ll make an extra effort to honor my mom. I’ll give the pigs extra hay to nap in, the ducks some fresh lettuce (or kale!) to eat, and I’ll do my best to be a good neighbor and friend. And though I know she really didn’t care at all - I’ll look in the mirror as I head out the door just to double check that the tags and seams really are exactly where they are supposed to be.

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This past week has felt like a reunion of long-lost friends.

Our bluebirds moved back into the nesting box outside our dining room window, and yesterday, I watched as they defended their nest from a starling. My first impulse was to go help them, but as much as they may look like helpless eye-candy, they both very aggressively and successfully defended their nest. I cheered as the starling left, and now I know they clearly don’t need any help from me!

The robin is making a halfhearted attempt to build her nest once again on the transom over our front door. So far, she’s not added any mud, so all the twigs and straw she gathers slide off the ledge and end up in a pile on the porch floor. The builder in me wants to put up a shelf to help her out, but I’m sure she’ll eventually figure it out and I just need to let her be.

A finch has made a tiny teacup sized nest inside the wisteria vines that I never got around to pruning last fall. She made it with hay from our pasture and pieces of wool from the sheep shearing. It’s a fine home, and I’ll happily wait a bit longer – at least until her fledglings have left before I finally trim back the vines.

On a quick venture out to look for morels today, I hurried past the spot where the apricot-scented chanterelles never fail to pop up in the heat of summer. I greeted them as I walked by. “It’s just me” I said, “go back to sleep.”

Our massive volunteer asparagus plant is emerging from its usual rocky spot which, for whatever reason, it happily calls home. Garlic mustard is popping up everywhere, and our little patch of ramps is finally spreading. The comfrey outside the pig fence is filling in nicely and the honeybees are busy checking out everything that is now in bloom.

Welcome back my friends, I have missed you so!

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Our local honeybee population is gearing up for the summer, and we are ready for them! We cleaned out our swarm boxes - evicting all the ants, spiders and mice that had moved in over the winter, and we rubbed the inside of each box with various attractants in hopes of catching a swarm.

A healthy honeybee colony, with a summertime population of 50,000 bees, will winter over with only 15,000 workers and the queen. A third of that wintertime population won’t make it through to spring. As the weather warms up, the queen awakens from her torpor, and the surviving crew gets busy preparing for a new season of growth. The comb, now almost empty of the honey that sustained them through the winter, needs to be refurbished to the queen’s satisfaction so she can start laying eggs again. The worker bees will clean out each cell, smooth the walls and add a thin layer of propolis which acts as an antibacterial buffer for the eggs. The queen will not lay an egg in any cell until this step has been completed.

Before laying, she puts her head inside the cell and measures it with her antennae. The size of the cell determines what kind of egg she lays. 90% of the cells in a hive are the correct size for workers (females) since they make up the vast majority of the colony. The drones (males) make up the remaining 10 % of the summertime population and require a bigger cell. If the builder bees determine that the colony needs more drones, a worker’s cell will be enlarged to a drone sized cell and after measuring, the queen will lay a drone egg. If the builders determine fewer drones are needed, as is the case in late summer, a drone sized cell will be reduced to a worker sized cell, and the queen will lay a female egg.

Right now, our soon to be queen is rebuilding the numbers, laying only female eggs and then will slowly add the male eggs in time for mating season. In full production, she lays up to 2,000 eggs a day, and the population inside the hive begins to swell.

When the hive starts to get crowded, the colony will choose to swarm. The worker bees will then create elongated cells in which the queen will lay the egg that will eventually become the new queen.

The original queen, after laying her replacement, leaves the existing hive with half the workers in search of a new home. It is a honeybee colony’s ultimate goal to reproduce itself by swarming such that one colony becomes two.

Scouts will travel for miles looking for the perfect place to start over, and we hope they discover, and move into, our swarm boxes. We built the boxes just the right size and put them up in just the right trees at just the right height. We made sure they were clean and dry and then we rubbed the inside of them with wax, propolis and lemongrass. Now it’s just a waiting game. Even though it’s unlikely for a colony to swarm this early in the season, we check the boxes daily to see if any scouts are inspecting them.

The scouts, in theory, will smell the old honeycomb and propolis and think “This box has had honeybees living here before, so it is obviously the perfect spot to start over!”

Luckily bees are bees and don’t think like me. Because if I were a bee, I’d smell the old honeycomb and question what happened to the last swarm. I mean if it’s such a great spot why did they leave?

But we really are, in fact, the perfect forever home for our bees. We actively encourage clover in our pastures and never mow our lawn too short. We encourage native plants in and around our fields – and we never, ever, use any pesticides, or herbicides of any kind.

We had a swarm move in a couple years ago but ultimately lost the hive to a bear. This year though I know we’ll be successful. We will attract the swarm and lose the bear. I’m sure of it. That’s the thing about farmers; we have an abundance of hope. We tend to be industrious, and though not always lucky, we hang onto our hope. That is in fact what keeps us going (that and being pathologically stubborn.) Every spring, all the failures of the year before fade away, and just as the trees start to flower, the farmer’s hope begins to blossom as well. This year it’s going to be different! This year everything is going to be just fine! This year, we’ll have luck on our side.

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When my mom was a child, there were cows and pigs on our property and chicken coops, and barns to explore. But by the time she and my dad built their house “in the cow pasture between the brook and the cedars” - and filled it with five kids, the cows were long gone. I think with all of us in tow, my dad figured that he had more than enough livestock to care for, and there was no need to add to the chaos.

The cows never returned, and the field stopped being grazed. Where he mowed twice a year, it remained an open field, but the rougher areas that couldn’t be mowed immediately became a battle ground for invasives. At first, it was the bittersweet and honeysuckle, later came barberry and multiflora rose. He spent much of his free time maintaining it all by hand, trying to stay ahead of the ever-encroaching vines, brush, and brambles.

He used a walk-behind sickle bar, brush cutter, chainsaw, mattock, and clippers. When we got older, he paid us to dig the roots out, but it never worked. Pieces of roots were invariably left behind, and the plants always came back in the spring with a vengeance. It was, at best, a losing battle. Each year, as he got a little older, he cleared a little less and at some point, he just gave up. After that, the old cow pasture quickly became an impenetrable thicket of brush.

Our pigs and sheep, though, have happily reclaimed it all. They love grazing the open field with its thick stand of grass and clover but each summer we gave them an additional 10-foot strip of invasive brush to clear, in an effort to push back the unruly frontier. The sheep repeatedly grazed the tops of the invasives, and the pigs attacked the roots, trying to get at the corn we’d purposefully scatter on the ground.

This year they finished their last 10-foot strip along the fence, and the invasives have finally been banished to the other side of the property line. As the bare ground gives way to grass, the pasture is beginning to look the way it did before the cows left, I only wish my dad was still around to see it.