All too easy

I can’t really call this season a sneak attack, though I wish I could. It almost feels like March has something up his sleeve. Nothing has come out of nowhere. There has been ample foreknowledge that this was going to be an early spring. There would be no sudden call to action with the tractors full of last years unchanged oil. No, not even close. Actually up until now it’s really been a little game of justifying non-action (yes, I could work the field but there is still maybe 1/2 inch of frost in the ground. Yes I could work the fields, but it’s FREAKING FEBRUARY!!&^$*#)

As time goes on, the likelihood of the other shoe dropping diminishes. I went out and prepped fields for shaping veggie beds, incorporated last years winter kill cover crops, and cultivated for new spring cover crops, and at no moment did even the low spots seem too wet to work. Everything went a little too smoothly. If we were talking a normal March, the soil would be saturated from all the moisture frozen in from the season before, with snow melt mudifying the thawed layer over the frost layer. The Springtime wait is normally punctuated by field walks, not only to make a plan, but to see if maybe…just maybe…we can start prepping a field, any field!

I didn’t hardly walk the fields at all. I didn’t check the low spots. The justifying further waiting, even though this would be only the second time since I started doing this work that I’d be doing field work in March, was put aside almost as a whim. Excuses were just running out. I didn’t even stay as vigilant on the disk as I usually would to ensure that the tractor didn’t start pulling heavy in some mud. There is no mud. There is no excess of spring moisture. All…went…well. And that’s troubling.  Because in March, nothing should go well.

We won’t start planting in the field quite yet, I don’t think. There is still a decent cold snap ahead, and really little is gained by getting a head start with the soil freezing solid at night (“you gotta get an early start if you want to have to do things twice” someone said to me recently). But I’ll get back out again today to shape some beds so that when the cold snap ends we can head straight out and get some seeds in the ground.

At the risk of getting ahead of myself, if all continues to go so disquietingly well, we may be at the markets the first week of May. No promises of course. I’d personally feel better with a few more crappy, snowy, muck days. And by better I mean normal. And by normal I mean frustrated. March is supposed to be frustrating.

We’re going to fire up the greenhouse a little earlier than usual too. Might even start cleaning up all the harvest gear so we don’t get caught in a pinch. Chris has already come on board, and Char’Rese will be coming back in April. All too easy.

But, I’ll be giving March the side eye in the meanwhile, if for no other reason than that if things don’t take a bad turn, at least a little mistrust might make the situation feel better. And by better, well…you know what I mean.