Circle M Farm

I know as a vegetable farmer I should absolutely detest the long months of winter, but I come to love it more and more as the season plods on here in Wisconsin.

When the hustle of the holidays subsides, my mind and body gradually come to accept and surrender to the pace of January. With each storm that keeps us from venturing away from home, I have less and less desire to leave the cozy confines of the house and the endlessly re-made contours of our tiny valley homestead. All this sunny morning long, the hoar-frosted trees have been gently releasing a sprinkle of sparkling fairy-dust to the frozen earth below. I imagine that it must make a musical tinkling sound in the ears of countless burrowed creatures as it falls on the thick blanket of ice-crusted snow. On grey days, the land takes on a different character, beautiful in its own way, and with each blizzard and thaw and drift-making wind, the hedgerows and hills and fence lines emerge as something new.

Even as I welcome the year’s first lambs, order garden seeds and prepare to start the first flower flats at the end of the month, I confess I mourn the impending end of winter. Already the sun has shifted and days grow perceptibly longer. The chatter of returning birds builds each morning to the cacophony that will be our summer song. My horses paw the snow aside to nibble hungrily at the flush of green making its way back up the brittle stalks of orchard grass. There is magic in the return of life to the dormant earth and I will rely on its call to wake me in good time. But I, I am finally at rest and loathe to leave this muted nurturing cocoon. Let it snow.

Many of the animals seems to relish winter, too. Our sheep haven’t yet taken refuge in the small barn they’ve got for shelter. But come the relative heat of June, even though they’ll be freshly shorn, they’ll head to the shade of its cool stone foundation.

The ducks seem to be unfazed by even the most severe cold weather. Here, they are nestled at the door of a small house, but they won’t go inside until spring, and only then to lay a blue egg apiece every few days.