As much as I love winter, spring holds a special place in my heart. It’s such a hopeful time of year where seeds germinate and babies are born. The weather warms and I long for spending time outside.
This spring is no different. We have 200 baby tomato starts moving from the house to the greenhouse, in 4 inch and gallon pots. By May, they will be nearly 3 feet tall, each in their own 3 gallon pot and ready for your garden. In the past 6 years since Tayze’s passing, raising tomatoes has become near and dear to my heart. Each tomato season, I reminisce over 30 years’ worth of memories of Tayze and each year I try to remember or focus on a new memory. This year’s memory was triggered by the purchase of a “weed burner.”
What is a weed burner, you may ask? As an adult, it’s a dream come true; a hosed wand that attaches to a propane tank & destroys weeds with fire. A brilliant creation. Much easier on my back than pulling them. As a kid, well, let’s just say its more of a nightmare. Growing up on the farm, it didn’t really matter if you were a girl or a boy, born on the farm or visiting. If there was work to be done, you got to do it.
One particular summer when we were about 11 or 12, I think, the weed burner was the most terrible, awful thing we could imagine. Tayze (she was Julie back then), Derrick (my little brother) & I were tasked with burning ditch. On our farm in the 80’s, to water our crops, we had cement ditches for syphon tubes, gated pipe and the dreaded field ditches that needed scorched then burned black (a two-step process) throughout the year. See burning doesn’t kill them forever and with such a close proximity to water, the weeds grew back. They could be called a cash crop if they’d been worth something.
The first argument was who was going to drive the tractor. You see, the weed burner was a 500-gallon propane tank on wheels. It had previously belonged to my deceased grandpa and was rust orange in color, which usually translated to a rust orange backside once you’re done. If it was 100 degrees, riding was the best place. The cold of the tank was much better than the 120+ degrees on the end of the wand even if your butt turned orange. But, there was huge satisfaction in running the wand in that horrid heat, that made it worthy of the second argument. Seeing the weeds burn when you scorched them felt so good to your soul and the second pass, a few days later, to burn it black was a thing of pride.
Driving was a challenge too, because whoever drove had to back the pickup or tractor back across the field or down the lane, as there was no place to turn around. I almost always lost the argument to drive, because I was the only one who could successfully back up without ending up in the ditch. By successful, I don’t mean efficient. Yet after many attempts at back up, jackknife, drive forward to straighten up, repeat, repeat again many more times, we would arrive back at the house.
Upon our return, Mom would reward us with popsicles or treats from the Schwan Man. I’m pretty sure we had sugar-free options for Tayze, as mom was familiar with Type 1 Diabetes as my previously mentioned grandfather had passed from complications of his 2nd kidney transplant some 4-5 years earlier. Oh the good ole days.
Fast forward back to 2021, we have fertilized eggs from our chickens in the incubator. We started some in the winter with aspirations of eggs by the end of the summer. So far so good!
And we have piglets. Zinni only had 6 babies this litter and 2 were stillborn. A little disappointing, but like all piglets, they are some of the most entertaining creatures. Their zoomies keep us laughing. As with all the piglets born here, they will have the best life on our farm playing in the mud, roaming our woods and receiving belly scratches, but in the end, they will nourish our bodies. If you’re interested in a share, feel free to email us or check back on the website or our FaceBook page for more details in mid-June.