Memphis Democrat Column from April 10, 2005

One of the pleasures of spring at Sandhill Farm is watching the flowers bloom, each in their turn. We have had the excitement of seeing the first hints of color as the Siberian squill, crocuses and snowdrops opened. Then came the daffodils and the forsythia. I saw a vivid red tulip open today and the violets and spring beautys are beginning to sprinkle themselves through the grass in our orchard. Our fruit trees are also showing their colors, with the apricot heading up the parade this year.

Spring also means the return of many birds to our land and more activity by our year-round residents.

The pileated woodpeckers have been drumming, the first Baltimore orioles are making their appearance and we hear the wild turkeys gobbling almost every morning. We had a day-long visit from a pair of Bufflehead ducks who found the fishing irresistable in one of our ponds. Rachel at Dancing Rabbit told us that they are more common on large bodies of water and are not usually seen in our kind of environment.

Spring also brings more activity outside, particularly in the garden. We have been busy planting spinach, peas, early potatoes, onion sets, greens and beets. Michael, Gigi and I have also been starting more flats of vegetables, herbs and flowers to be planted out later.

Stan has been occupied with cleaning and setting up the bee hives for this year. The bees that overwintered have been active looking for good things to eat. I really enjoy seeing them checking out

what is available.

It is also the beginning of our intern season and we welcomed Debbie as our first one this past Friday. She was referred to us by our friends at East Wind and has been travelling and working on organic farms this past year. She is from New Jersey.

Gigi and I have done some more interviews of intern candidates and have accepted two more for this year. This brings the number up to six. The two of us have been very impressed with the quality of the applications we are receiving.

We also have a visitor with us at the moment who arrived Saturday and will be here until the 14th. Brian has just returned from several months in Asia. He was participating in the same college-level

program in India that Kristen, one of last summer's interns, was a part of two years ago. After he finished that he was in Sumatra, Indonesia for two months. He was there at the time of the big earthquake in December, but did not experience the tsunami since he was inland and not on the coast.

He said that he did not find out about it until the friends he was with called their families in the U.S.

Brian will be returning to school at the University of Redlands in California this fall.

Laird left this weekend for a twelve day trip that includes work with a community in Durham, North Carolina and a visit with Ann in Virginia.

We did have some disappointing news this week. The Missouri Department of Agriculture's organic program that our farm was certified through was eliminated. It was a program that we were strong supporters of and it had made Missouri one of the national leaders in an expanding sector of agriculture. Like a number of other organic producers and processors in the state, we will have to move our certification elsewhere in the next few months.