When spring arrives, it isn’t always with the sun. It isn’t always with the emergence of a flower, and it usually isn’t with the first sight of green. When spring arrives, it is slow. It is muddy. It is arduous. It is gray. It is subtle. Spring comes when the last big storm bangs our windows, and the trickling of the layers of frozen water moves over the roofline and tink, tink, tink into the gutters.
There is a moment when you know it is here when you see the chickadees sing “cheeseburger” in the trees or the bluebird comes back. It’s when the cow birds make their nest again in the eaves of the chicken coop. The Robin sits in his favorite spot in your garden once again, despite the ice formed on the branches of the hawthorn. He eats the last of the berries dried by the ice and cold and intense winds from the southwest.
The spring comes with the scent of the fennel warming at the base and the sap from the maples moving to turn into the first real harvest of the year. The eggs are showing back up in the coop, and the length of the day isn’t just seen but felt in our energy and in our bones. It may not feel right away, but it is there like a rush in the creek. It is quiet and subtle, but it builds under the surface into something powerful
Like an orchestral piece written just perfectly, spring comes in tiny key moments that remind us of the direction we are heading, despite the waves of feelings winter just won’t let go. A back and forth on the violin sort of dance that tells us of the path we are on better than we can see it in the moment we are in. The dance between what was and what will be becomes like a sonnet of trial and growth. The flying snow in April that turns to rain and then to sunshine in a matter of hours feels hard to stomach, but it is part of the beauty of what it is to grow something new.
Spring used to be a time I really detested. It tried me. I ached to be in the ground and smell the soil again, but I have learned it is a beautiful and intimate time of awakening, and like learning to walk again. We step forward and stumble back, and then one day the hard becomes easier. The mud all of a sudden is softer, and the grass comes alive. The days of gray bleed into blue skies again, and our world evolves right before our eyes when the leaves come to life, and then one day, right about mid to late May, it's all alive.
The tedious work of waiting and persistent belief and hope in the process becomes actualized into something that, to experience a northern evolution between winter and spring, is to learn that the hardest things bring the most beauty.
For years, I wished for the middle place where nothing was too hard to swallow. Winter wasn’t intense, nor was that summer too hot. That, on a scale of 1 to 10, we could just sit at 60-75 in that range. I have learned, though the older I become, that life isn’t written in the middle, it’s written on the edges. It’s the winters that pull at your bones and make you slow so deeply that you face the parts of yourself that are easy to keep hidden. It’s the layers that can be pulled back, and the intimacy that can form with those you love and with yourself in those times, that create a life that also dances with joy and finds the magic in the sparkle on the water in July. Life is best felt in the extreme moments so that we know the deep magic and intense grief of the human world.
You cannot force yourself through the transition of spring and the messy layers of the end of winter, but you can pace yourself through it like trudging through the melting snow. Each moment you ease through the mess and feel that relief is beautiful and a gift. Each sunset that lingers on the horizon a little longer offers more energy. Each storm that rushes over the land is another point of gratitude. Every single bird song is a triumph. It is a moment in the year we get to relearn not just gratitude but the absolutely shimmery beauty of the new and exciting additions, even when it still feels hard.
Spring has taught me more than most seasons about resiliency and finding joy in the tiniest things. Most of all, though, it has taught me about hoping when it feels impossible. A season like spring can be not just hard but impossible to love for some, but I have learned that if I can love this season, the others are that much more magical.
I have learned that spring is a time of awakening, and this process is intense. It requires a deep desire for resilience and a pursuit of hope. Gardening has taught me this. That's when a big storm comes, and the full moon rises in March, we plant seeds while we hunker in one more time. This isn’t a step backward, but the point we dig a little deeper into the soil of ourselves and within our hope.
Spring, I believe, is the test. The true moment of alignment in our bodies of how we spent our winters. How did our winter allow us now to face the point of awakening? This is when we find our place in the cycle and how well we have leaned into this process of being in the seasons. If we never just sank into the process of wintering, we may feel exhausted as the gray days take over. If we slept long and deeply, and didn’t push ourselves in a direction that didn’t feel grounding, we may feel more than ready to emerge properly in the season ahead. Spring’s ups and downs can feel less tedious and more like something we can tackle with endurance and strength of mind and body.
As we enter a new season, there will be moments in the coming weeks when the work will be hard. The belief in the growth will be even harder, but when we discover just what lies amongst the layers of change and just how much work it takes within the land to do this, we may find grace and joy in it all as a process worthy of our attention.
You can check out the Spring playlist today on Spotify! Head here to get access to it for Free.
Find out more info about this upcoming class I am teaching! If you have wanted to hire me for a design, I am currently being super selective about projects, so I can more intentionally focus on properly stewarding the properties I have, but I am offering these amazing experiences where we can work together in a group setting and design your landscape together. So PLEASE come and enjoy.
Random writing from my notes and notebooks over the weeks that gather in the spaces between in life.
3/19/2026
Like the robin who returns repeatedly to the same place, we are the same. We need and desire a place that identifies who we are in our lifetime. The place sings on the wind to us, no matter where we travel. The flavors of the land come back to us like glittery memories of childhood. A sense of place isn’t just about where we call home, but it is a grounding in something deeper than we may ever fully understand.
11/10/2025
The shifts of the land in less than 30 days are immense. Remember, this is true in us as well. We shift this quickly at times. Pay attention to it all is a subtle thing, but when we add it all up, we see how it all matters. Every tiny shift. Every single moment of rest and action. It all moves the needle through the ebb and flow.
2/12/2024
Winter is a season of resilience, patience, routine, and begging us to find magic we don’t have the option to in other seasons. In other seasons, the magic comes easier in the form of dips in the lake, harvests of vegetables, the shifting color of the leaves, or the beautiful, tender sight of the first broad bean or crocus. Yet, in winter, in this very short month we call February, we must make a point of embracing the rhythm even if we find ourselves wishing to pull forward into something new.
Just some things happening and that I am thinking of lately:
ON MY MIND: The Desert. After the snowstorm, spring break is now upon us, and we are headed out to the desert of Arizona to visit cacti, explore the desert world, take some cruises on two tracks, and just honestly warm up. I love the desert, and I am excited to watch my kids see it for the first time. We are hitting up all the natural things we can and that we are able to, as I am still recovering and healing. But we are all excited for a change of scenery in the coming weeks.
OBSESSING ABOUT: Market opening at Farm Club. Our good friends and neighbors at Farm Club are opening an amazing market this May. I got a sneak preview as a CSA member (ps sign up for one and support your local farms).
ANTICIPATING: Zach Galifinakis’ Gardening Show. I appreciate Zach’s sense of humor so much, but applying it to gardening and the questioning of the system of food…yeah, that’s what we need. I am excited for this show and glad things like this are being made.
PRIORITIZING: Making my phone a dumb phone. Heading into busy season, I can find myself tied to my phone WAY more than I want to be, so I have been playing with ways to make it more or less like a Light phone or dumb phone and trying to convince myself I don’t need to get a separate work-related phone or anything. So far, I am seeing results after reading this article. I loved the concept, and I haven’t done the password part with my partner, but it will be the next step if I find myself not using the rules properly.
WEARING: Vests. I love them. Always have. Always will. I just love their functionality for what I do, but I also love the look and how it can take the most basic everyday outfit and level it up. This, or something similar, would be fun to make, I think.
LISTENING: Audio messages. I have recently been doing more audio messages with friends because we live busy lives, and it can be hard to catch each other on the phone at the right time. But this way we can listen, reflect, and connect. It’s been so fun to do this. It was weird at first, but now I am sort of in love with the practice.
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