The Spring Rush

I am writing today with my laptop propped up on a bowl of freshly made butter on the kitchen counter. I have porridge cake baking in the oven behind me, cheddar culturing on the stove, goat milk halloumi draining at the sink, a bowl of levain bubbling away for dinner rolls tonight and some of our beef straight from the butcher and in the slow cooker for french dips tonight to be served alongside the last of our purple sprouting broccoli from the tunnel. I am writing up the cheese recipe as I go, testing it for a new cheesemaking course. I answer emails as they come in and spent the 20 minutes of stirring time for the halloumi with my phone wedged in the crook of my neck while I spoke to a supplier. It is part dance, part chaos...moving each piece of the farm's journey a little bit further on. Once these tasks are done, my laptop and I will head to another space to do the next most urgent thing - probably moving seedlings or compost or sheep or feed, grabbing moments of "work" in between the moments of life that is also work.

In a moment of frustration last week, I flirted with the idea of about walking away from it all. The goat had just kicked the bucket of milk over for the 3rd time that morning, a small child was furious about school, I froze all my tomato seedlings for the 2nd year in a row after not checking they were covered in the tunnel. I had work piling up, milk over flowing in the fridge and felt like whatever I was trying to do I was just failing at it. All of it.

And then I remembered that this is just what spring is. Its what we waited all winter for as we swore about the boredom, dark and cold. Its checking lambs and milking and making and sowing and planning. It catches up on us every year because all of the sudden everything is budding and birthing and lactating all at once after months of dark and quiet. In Winter, chores were short and done in the dark and we could be excused for staying in bed that little bit longer in the mornings because there wasn't a goat who would freak out of she wasn't milked at precisely 730am on the dot. In Spring and Summer "chores" can't be confined to a few hours a day and begin to leak into everything. Sowing while helping with homework. Answering emails in between vaccinating lambs.

There is no division between work and life. We hang up a zoom call and run to get feed in the 20 minutes between. I am as likely to be sitting in a barn milking the cow as a dictate a blog post as I am to have sat down at a desk to write it. We are fueled by adrenaline and caffiene and baby goat antics and the promise of summer meals.

It is so messy, but its glorious...and at the end of it, I will look forward to the quiet of Winter, I am sure.