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Every day it seems like there's something new blooming around the farm or along the highway. A few weeks ago, it was the apple trees in the orchard on the farm; today, it's purple lilacs! Spring is wildly green, especially on the farm, especially when I think back to February and March, when the trees were spidery and bare and the field out in front of the house was all dirt.

Now, the view out our kitchen window is a screen of about ten different greens; the fields out the west windows are lined with neat rows of peas and brassicas. The tomatoes, which I swear were an inch tall just a bit ago, are springing and leafing up--and the reject starts that we rescued to place on our windowsill are all bending energetically into the glass to catch the afternoon sun. (The bachelor's buttons and marigold and lemongrass seeds that I planted in pots, also on our windowsill, are doing less well . . . but I blame that on my forgetting to water them.)




Even the baby ducks. These guys are like four or five weeks old, and they're already giants--hilariously clumsy and quite afraid of humans. Just last night, as Tim and I were walking by, they all scrambled up from their naps on the ground and tried to rush away--but kept looking back at us while they ran, so one of them tumbled into the water dish and others fell on their faces. They are not used to their ducky feet yet.

Our dinners are more springy too--we have been devouring huge bowls full of fresh-picked lettuce, dressed with a bit of olive oil and balsamic, every night. And this week, radishes!

It is kind of wild, how all of this color and lushness and yummy food can sprout out of spindly winter trees and dark winter dirt. I don't think I've ever, well, had so much direct exposure to spring.

But with spring comes the end of winter. I'm mourning the last of the over-wintered leeks (which I've come to love sautéed in butter with a little orange zest and possibly some julienned asparagus)--they will be gone by this Sunday. And I'm not yet ready to say goodbye to this miraculous kale salad (we have discovered endless variations of it that are bowl-scrapers every time). But all the flowering kale plants have been tossed to the chickens.


When I was bemoaning, kind of dramatically, the end of the leeks the other day, Tim summarized it all very practically: I will feel this way about every vegetable.

So this is the trade-off of eating in season--I plan the last leek quiche with a heavy heart and wonder if that kale salad will be as good with lettuce instead, and at the same time I dream of a new salad with radishes, and a tart with pastry cream and rhubarb sauce, and pester Tim about what's next. And always, I dream of tomatoes.