This morning when I was driving home from the rec center, I was bowled over by all the expressions of green. In the last day or so, every tree has burst into leaf, and every tree has its own version of spring green -- that color that we all remember from the crayon box. In the crayon box I think there was one particular spring green, but they could make a box of 48 crayons with names like lilac leaf, two day tulip poplar, tired evergreen, honey locust explosion, willow oak, April barley before seed head, chickweed gone to seed, blueberry with blooms, bolting spinach, post-blossom cherry tree. Every one of them would be different, with more yellow mixed in, or brown, or blue. Out in Loudoun you can just stand in the middle of the huge expanse and be surrounded by all the hues of agricultural green.
This is part of what makes April my favorite month, in addition to all the other wonders.
April is a moody month, with stifling humidity one day and cool rain the next. You never know what will happen tomorrow. All plans are revised when you wake up to the sound of rain on the roof, on a day that was predicted to be sunny and warm.
It is rare to have two days in a row filled with the same work. It is rare to have five days in a row of work, actually. There will be an unplanned full day of rain. Weekends can still be for fun. For four days straight we will work fast and hard, putting as many plants in the ground as we can before the next interruption. It is the opposite of boring.
The days are getting longer, by leaps and bounds. Soon it will be light at 5:30 in the morning -- I love that the best. And it will be dark until 9 PM -- I love that too. It makes the outdoors so much more welcoming to all the people who don't get to work outside all day. We hear little kids yelling on the Greenway at dusk. A crowd of young and old people play basketball outside the Common House until they can't see the basket anymore.
And it is finally warm enough in the evening to lie in the hammock. There is nothing more delicious than letting every bone and muscle melt into a hammock for a nap before dinner.
April is when we do all the most fun farming -- we create the big quilt, one field at a time, getting ready for the next months of filling in all the gaps. The greenhouse is alive with vigorous vegetable plants. Once we finish a task, we don't look back. It's mulched. It's planted. Move on. There is always a new series of challenges. Tomorrow we hope we will put the plastic on the long tomato tunnel. That only happens once a year. Jon just finished putting up the siding in the new office in the Green Barn. That only happens once in a lifetime.
In May we return to the weekly cycle where we have to get ready for five markets on the weekend. It changes everything. Suddenly each weekday has a purpose and a plan. It gets even more structured in June when the CSA starts. No more random freedom when it rains. We work in all weather from June through November.
I guess that's what I really like about April. It is spontaneous and leafy, full of memories and associations, and every day feels special because it doesn't have a name. It's just a sunny day or a rainy day. And with each passing moment, the trees on the edges of the fields fill in the spaces and the houses that surround the farm begin to disappear. Suddenly they are gone. It is magic.
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