A Farmer’s Spring – in Photos

by Scottie Jones, | April 29, 2019

We get March coming in like a lion, but April was supposed to be sweet like a lamb. Unpredictable weather across the country has our farmers and ranchers picking up lambs freezing out in the fields one day and letting the cows out on fresh grass the next. It’s enough to make a farmer crazy! That, and the promise of spring.

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~ Margaret Atwood

Of course, all that weather means different things across the country. While there’s snow in the northern states, the hillsides are covered in blankets of flowers in southern California because of the winter rain. Snapping turtles are coming out of the mud in North Carolina, while chicks are hatching everywhere.

We thought a photo journey around the country from our farm stay members’ Instagram and Facebook pages might give a truer picture of springtime on the farm. As they say in almost every state, as if it is their private truth, just wait a moment and the weather will change. May we present spring!

Kids at play, Leaping Lamb Farm, Oregon

A wizard must have passed this way
Since—was it only yesterday?
Then all was bare, and now, behold,
A hundred cups of living gold!
~Emma C. Dowd, “Daffodil and Crocus,” in Country Life in America: A Magazine for the Home-maker, the Vacation-seeker, the Gardener, the Farmer, the Nature-teacher, the Naturalist, April 1902.