Spring has entered its middle phase. The point where we are pruning, letting go, and also beginning to see what will emerge after the winter. The years of planting bulbs in the hillside now is paying off. The passion to set better soil in the fall, is showing green and healthy early in the spring. All of it is evident right along with the process of letting go the year before as the old growth sits dormant, waiting for life to release from the dried stalks.
Currently, I have been spending many days in our vineyard we took stewardship of. An acre of established but feral wine grapes that I am lovingly calling a “Field blend” of white varietals. They have become a new and invigorating project that excites me every day. The thing is, like so much work in nature, there is things I am connecting to in my own life. Things that I have sensed in me that now feel as if they have come to the surface in this next chapter of my life.
Spending my days working away at this old vineyard, I feel some connection to the process it takes to bring them back to full fruition once again. I trim away what no longer is living and look for what will carry on the life of the plant in the years to come. I look at the nodes, branches, and everything in between. I ask questions in my head in split second moments about direction, growth, viability, and so much more. Then I clip away till my fingers go numb from cold or just overworking. I find the through lines of what should remain after all the years where they have never had those questions asked. I pull away the old grass and look for the core of who they are. One plant at a time. Every time I discover someone different that lies there.
The thing is though right now, more than ever before, I feel content, which I think is what wintering can offer us. In some way sitting quiet all winter has been like the seed that needs to be stratified in order to grow properly. I am that seed, those rhizomes, those roots. I understand that they need that time on top of the cold of the snow to feel awakened and to find their sense of place. I have found it.
When this happens though something else happens. The old growth. What once was becomes a weight or the thing that stands in our way. The things that felt like another lifetime have to be let go. Just like our gardens that now are beginning to ache and call to us to trim the dead branches of last year, I feel that too. Something are as close as just the need to put away the winter snow pants because I think we might be in the clear enough to suffer if we get one more snow or cold day, but some are deeper. Some are bigger and scarier. Some are saying the things out loud that once served us so well that truly aren’t anymore. They can be scary, because it means something that once was so important isn’t anymore. These things linger in my head like words that want to find their way to paper. They are also the things I have a tendency to fear the most. If I speak out loud what I actually want, what does it mean? Yet, I see it in the grapes. When I pull away the grass around the base, and I see all the old growth that the lichen have taken over, I see something aching to emerge. The plant doesn’t even have to tell me, I can see it right there in front of me.
This practice has been clarifying in that it has helped me see the same in my life more than ever before. I am beginning to look at myself and ask fewer questions but just look at the pure form that wants to emerge despite the old patterns and ways. I can hear the values. The things that create fire in me. The things that spur me on.
While trimming the grapes, I can hear the things that need trimming in me. Like a symbiotic relationship of some odd and weird kind. I cannot quite explain it, but these grapes who I just met have begun teaching me more than I ever intended for them to about not just when and how to prune a grape but also myself.
In these months where we begin to awaken our gardens and we prune away the old we have to feel and sense the same in ourselves. When and where to do it as well as much as the how, but I think the most important part of the pruning process is also why. Why is this the thing that no longer should exist here. Is it the right part of our path or is it the thing that is taking life even if we no longer are using it. The space things hold and the energy they take are worthy of our awareness.
I am excited to see what this years pruning allows to grow next in me and these grapes I now call dear friends.
You can check out the Spring playlist today on Spotify! Head here to get access to it for Free.
Random writing from my notes and notebooks over the weeks that gather in the spaces between in life. A practice of writing where inspiration finds me.
5/1/26
I write today to tell you it is the first of May in northern Michigan and it snowed. The skies are gray and the clouds are low. Yet the hills are electric green/yellow and my favorite maple is opening its leaves while the daffodils blow in the wind and the Serviceberry shows its early color
4/24/26
The moment the window opens I smell the cedars, the mud, the lake, the faint scent of cold as if it just snowed even though it didn’t, and I hear the peepers. The sound of the earth coming to life after winter. The way I know I will too. I will endure this too just as the land goes dormant and lets what is lost be lost, but then rebuilds in new and beautiful ways we never could anticipate.
Just some things happening and that I am thinking of lately:
ON MY MIND: Busy Season. This time of year is like a circus a little bit. We are at the whims of everything. When the cold fully lifts. When the deliveries come. When the crew is available. When the plan is final. When the plants are ready. When things are hardened off. When the mud dries. When the spring fully releases into the end of spring. Everything is at the whims of something else so we just plan as best we can and move forward the best we can.
OBSESSING ABOUT: Women in Land work. I say land work because there are so many areas women work with land in various ways. Yet we are highly under represented in the market and shows etc. It is an area of growth in the industry whether it be farming, landscaping, viticulture, hardscaping, land maintenance, conservation, stewardship, or any other field where you work with the land. Women are a massive part of the work force in these fields and it has been really cool to see and meet so many amazing women through this industry.
PRIORITIZING: Writing. In my busy season I often lose the chance to write, yet it is the thing that brings me the most fire in my belly. It keeps me sane when things get chaotic so I am working hard to make it a priority for me this year. I have set in place the ability to write anywhere by getting an iPad Pro this year so I can type between meetings and work things. It already has been helpful.
EATING: I went into our back acreage where there is a literal sea of ramps and harvested just enough to save them for the year. Ramp harvesting gets quite controversial these days, but honestly the research is clear enough and understanding plants in general we know that large patches of ramps can take a small removal of bulbs here and there but then taking a few leaves from a patch is always the best way to lean. We make ramp salt, ramp butter, ramp pesto, and add it anywhere garlic would be used.
WEARING: Setting the trend in tick safe attire but tucking in my jeans or work pants into my socks and then slipping on mid calf or higher boots. So far so good as tick season’s begins to ramp up. We need to become advocates for tick safe outfits over not entering the outdoors.
READING: This time of year into light reading so I started reading Emily Henry’s Beach Read so I can just slowly meander through it. So far it’s been perfect.
Use the link below to become a member so you can get access to the new one with all the updates. I plan to post about it in the next week or so.
If you are already a member, you can head here to get access
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.