Winter

It’s winter here in West Michigan and we are in the midst of shoveling snow, starting fires in our wood stove, reading great read aloud books with our kids, homeschooling, making soup and enjoying sledding down the hills.

As I write this we are in the midst of a major blizzard.

Winter can be long, dark, cold, cloudy, and long….

But the sun on that snow is so beautiful.

Currently we are in a major blizzard. Winter here can be long, dark, cloudy, and long….did I mention long. Well, at least by March it seems really long. However, there are many great reasons to love winter. Here are a few of mine.

Winter is a wonderful time to reflect, rest, and recharge.

REST: Farming is hard on your body, your hands constantly in the motion of harvesting, your body working hard digging, moving compost, flipping beds, and moving heavy buckets. So the physical rest is needed.

It is also mental rest. I definitely put in less hours farming in the winter.

So get out and enjoy the snow…even if your coat is dirty…

REFLECT: Now that I am not spending hours harvesting, selling, and delivering flowers I can reflect on the past season. I actually enjoy this.

Spending time looking at what flowers sold the most, what systems I can improve, how I can work smarter not harder, budgeting out for next season.

Also part of this is crop planning. My goal is to have all my seeds ordered before Christmas. I also have all my lisianthus plugs ordered by Thanksgiving. I do this to ensure that I have all my supplies by the time that I need them, and so that I can have the variety of seeds and plugs that I desire as the mostly popular varieties sell out early and there may be limited supply as well.

RECHARGE: Winter is used to recharge, to regain excitement for the next season, to continue to build relationships with customers.

I also recharge by spending a lot of edjucating myself. For example this year I have spend many hours watching the ASCFG 2022 conference lectures that are uploaded on the members website. It has been so wonderful to learn from other flower farmers from all things to crop planning, bookkeeping, post harvest care, and the journey of a flower farm.

I also read books related to business, marketing, and farming. I revisit my website and make updates. I prep blog posts, connect with other farmers, and sometimes, I take a nap. I also homeschool as mentioned above, so I spend a lot of time doing this. I rock my baby, play trucks with my 4 year olds, and teach my older two children a new board game. I also cook extra with many of my meals to have my freezer stacked with at least 20 meals.

So…to everything there is a season. Part of what I love about the seasonality of life is that there is winter built into our seasons. So winter makes me thankful for seasons. But I am also thankful for the faithfulness of our Creator, and for the promise of spring.

The colder the winter is… the more beauty you see in Spring.

So we stack the wood, and enjoy the fire in our wood stove, we plan, we read books, we look for the beauty of the sun on the snow, and we wait….we wait for spring the come again. We wait to see shoots from the peony’s and daffodils, and tulips.

Then in March…seed starting begins both inside, and in the field as soon as the ground can be worked to plant those cool flowers outside. The promise is real….Spring will come again, birds will sing, the earth will green, and the trees will leaf.

So hold on my friends and enjoy the beauty all around you today.