Twenty-four years ago, in the spring, we two vegetable farmers found a baby in the cabbage patch. The cabbage wasn’t nearly ready, but the baby was.
You might think that a baby in the spring for vegetable farmers is a little crazy. Well, we soon thought so, too. Add in a new team of horses, a new greenhouse, a new venture into CSA membership, and we went from a little crazy to a lot crazy.
Wow, we said, maybe we shouldn’t do that again.
But apparently the lesson is fading. Although we don’t have a new greenhouse this year, and we are happy to be 20-plus years into CSA vegetable growing, with a full membership, we do have a new team of horses. The lovely Fern and Willow are adjusting nicely to the farm-horse life after the carriage-horse life.
We also don’t have a new baby. But we do have a new puppy - and we are saying Wow again. Wow, you’re cute. Wow, you get up a lot in the night. Wow, it’s hard to get a lot of work done. Luckily we keep coming back to Wow, you’re cute.
Our kitty does not agree. Our kitty says Wow, the puppy is not cute. The kitty says Wow, the puppy gets up a lot in the night, and I don’t approve of this crate full of sleeping puppy in the bedroom. The kitty also says, Wow, it’s hard to get a lot of work done: I have mice to catch, and naps to take, and necessary petting, and everywhere I turn there’s a curly-haired black puppy. Wow, repeats the kitty, he really is not cute.
The horses, on the other hand, are much more interested in a puppy.
Both our old horses and our new horses find this little being fascinating, and watch him run around. Well, they would watch him run around, but mostly he is sitting a good distance away from the horses, with his eyes big. Or he is snuggled into a farmer’s arms, wondering why an enormous creature is approaching him and making nose noises, which the farmer tells the puppy is a horse greeting, basically saying Wow, you’re cute. The puppy does not yet believe this.
Every day we have horse therapy, cat therapy, and riding in the car is fun-not- nauseating therapy. We also have gnawing on a delicious horse hoof paring (thanks to the recent farrier visit), which gives a farmer just about enough time to water the flats of transplants in the greenhouse.
Of course, we also take many exploratory walks around the farm. Look! A stream! Look a leaf! Look! A hay rake! Look! A stick! Look! A pond! An irrigation pump! A field! A pine cone! The wonders are large and small, many and various.
We visited our vet for the first time this week, too, which the puppy thought was pretty great, especially since he got his first ever cheese whiz to lick up from the vet table. The vet is one of our long-time CSA members, and when she peeked into the room, she said, “Oh, what have you two done?” We laughed, very sleepily indeed.
The visit went well; in fact, our vet took the puppy on tour, to show him off to all the other staff in the building. When she brought him back, she said, “Well, I’ll know why if I don’t get much produce this summer!”
We farmers laughed again, sleepily, and, I admit, a trifle nervously. Wow. A puppy. In the spring. On a vegetable farm.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, May 1 - May 7, 2024