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April (snow) showers bring May… flowers? Winter Solstice came, but Winter mainly felt like a stranger. A letdown after the deep connection I felt with Fall. So what weather did it bring? Days of Summer. Days of Fall(freeze and fry). Days of Winter. Days of Spring. Winter, and now Spring, has been a total cacophony of elements!

April is here, and we have snow flurries and even snowy mornings. Buds and even blooms have formed on lilacs, and leaves have unfurled on eight blueberries and one of three elderberries we planted this winter. Unfortunately, April sub-freezing temps have crumpled those leaves. I hope the lilacs are resilient. May won’t be the same without their scent and laden cones of every shade of purple. Is there a flower more sensory than lilac?

Spring can behave like this. The green grass and budding of blooms battle to put Winter to rest. Sometimes that means beautiful fits of lofty wet snow making lumps of emerging bunch grass and tree buds. Then, when it melts, a green so vibrant compared to the dull tawny is a salve to my eyes and soul.

It also means those frosts that jeopardize the production of fruit trees. Frosts have frequently struck in June, an apparent last-ditch effort of Winter. Winter blew hard yet apparently was depleted, sputtering a few snow flurries that amounted to very little.

We were able to plant blueberries and elderberries, build our greenhouse, do ranch improvement projects, all good progress, but winter is a time of rest and reflection. The gusting wind drove us in for that more than frozen ground and protective layers of snow.

These aren’t the winters that I remember as a kid. Am I even old enough to pull that remark off?

With my less than fulfilled winter feelings aside, our pastures are green and taking off. The lawn is already on a weekly mow regime—an absolute delight since investing in a riding mower! Geese proclaim from the rocks; they either are outcasts having a tantrum about it or Canadian geese royalty showing off their castle.

Irrigation water is on, but we don’t feel the need to begin watering with these small bursts of snow and heavy frosts followed by sunshine and sweatshirt or even t-shirt weather.

We left our pastures with a nice short shag of dormant grass, not the sponge with a six o’clock shadow of an overgrazed pasture. We have spent all of April watching and waiting for our grass to get tall enough to graze the past few years. May fourth has been our starting graze date for a couple of years now.

Not this year! On April 12th, the cows left our winter sacrifice and returned to grazing!

This is a record for us and a sign that we have the right herd size for our pasture growth. Currently, we have six in our herd. This summer will bring changes to the cowherd, as it usually does.

Currently, we lust for less wind and more sun and rain showers as we work to finish the greenhouse for a late spring planting—more about that in the following newsletter.

We enjoyed Nathaniel's childhood home in Monterey, a week away from the Ranch in our favorite place to visit.

Clancy loved making tracks in the sand with his dump truck and ‘pool’ time in the low-temp hot tub. I ate my weight in sushi. Monty adapted quite well to being a civilized neighborhood pooch. Nathaniel was happy to be in both the Monterey climate and his parents’ home environment.

After all, there is no place like home, and Monterey will always be a home away from home that we want Clancy to grow up knowing.

Nathaniel’s sister, Robyn, made the trip possible. She wrangled the miscreant horses, fixed fence, and kept the ranch from flying away in 55mph winds… all while working long nurse’s shifts. Thank you, Robs!

I’ve had a bit of a sabbatical from the newsletter in March, but I look forward to getting back to reflecting on ranch life and sharing our journey. Thanks for reading another newsletter!