Maintenance and Rest

In the lead up to the holidays we had great plans for work on the urban farm, visits to friends and fellow veterans and some education courses we planned to attend. Unfortunately, life had other plans. Just as my children’s Christmas break began COVID struck our home and office with a great vengeance. You see, despite all the people we have known and places we have visited not a single member of LFV’s staff or immediate family has had COVID since all the crazy began coming on 3 years ago. The agriculture life style seemed to protect us until this last month, and Bam! We began to drop like flies. To top everything else off, I ended up suffering the worst of anyone, with multiple relapses and new symptoms almost daily. In the end, the world outside kept turning and thanks to a very unusual weather for southern Ohio, all of our recent experiments have been thriving.

The number of garlic pushing through the leaf pile has doubled, both in number and size. The Elephant Garlic increasing the most. The five Blackberry plants have increased there number of leaves and 3 of the 5 have split at the roots growing secondary plants.

The Winter Wheat has seen the greatest increase. The seed came out of my families food storage and was at least 40 years old Hard White Wheat. Due to the age of the wheat and how late in the year we planted, we expected to have seen little to no seed sprout. Whether due to the late warmth or the hardiness of the seed, it seems that over 1/3 of the seed sprouted and until our first hard frost last week had grown to approx. 8 inches tall.

As much as I would like to complain about the cold that has finally settled on the land. It has been great blessing for me. It is I probably would have not understood in my youth. Most of the plants have gone dormant since the hard freeze. As such their growth continues under the ground. This growth is needed for the health of the plants and next years harvest.

The same thing happens with soldiers. Training in all climates and conditions is necessary for success. Exhausting your men allows for an increase in stamina and strength. But one must also rest the body and the mind so that resilience and intelligence maybe developed and strengthened. So do forget that the rest is often as important and the work for a quality harvest to be gathered when needed.

I hope your new year will be filled with a glorious harvest. Deven Little