Webmaster’s note: The format of this column has changed a bit, with all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! This month’s column is written by Phil.
A quote attributed to Paul Harvey reads, “Despite all of our accomplishments, we owe our existence to six inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
Here near the 45th parallel, we make haste to work with that topsoil and rain to grow food and fodder in the few months of growing weather we have.
It really is astonishing that such a small amount of time is adequate for abundance. For months here, the earth sleeps, the trees sleep, some of the critters sleep. But what we have is enough for abundance.
This week, with the frost out of the ground and temperatures forecasted to be in the sixties, our places will awaken suddenly instead of slowly. The race for abundance will begin anew. Nature, content with such a small window of time, will amaze us with possibilities.
I’ve always held that to be a successful northerner, you must concentrate on short-term memory; that is, live in the present. Soon, winter will fade away, and our existence will change. We will walk out of houses with scant clothing, we will not warm up our vehicles, we will taste of our soil, and remember abundance.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously given us permission to share some of her columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.