Seasons

It's spring and another planting season is here. Corey is watering the tulips that were planted the day our dear friend and neighbor was informed her battle with cancer, only recently discovered, had been futile. A sunny October day... just a matter of months and yet it seems a life time. I recall telling her that day I wished her another growing season -- fellow lover of nature that she was. My wish for her was not to be, as her final day came before the first of winter.

Today as Corey watered I thought of our friend and how I missed her. Some things so a part of our character, retired elementary teacher as she was, I could almost hear her voice exclaiming to him the wonderful job he had executed. And so she will live on in our hearts, our dear friend, Ruby, who recognized the potential in every child.

What's in a Name?

What's in a name? As parents we put a lot of thought into our children's names. We say them out loud over and over, considering everything from the reaction others may have upon hearing it to the way it would look on an office door. We consider family and tradition, our heritage, personal likes and dislikes, and frequency of use… "Aunt Hazel would be so proud if we named our girl after her... Hazel Nutt. Oops, scratch that!!" "No, not Eddie! He sat behind me in the fourth grade and constantly picked his nose!” Well maybe not, but you get my drift.

As I drive almost an hour, one direction, to class these days (What happens when you live in the middle of no where and school is south of nothing.) I’m allotted a great deal of thinking time, which for me is a good thing as personal thoughts seem a minimum at home. No less than three people generally requesting my time at once -- topics ranging from Day Light Savings Time, to saddling a T-Rex (Yes, it can be done with enough Velcro!), and why we can’t have soda with our lunch, just to name a few. Oh my, now I’m rambling, back to the original topic…

This past Friday, while traveling home, my thoughts skewed toward the importance of a name, especially when it involves necessity of patronage to encourage growth, and suddenly I got a “wild hair” to reconsider the name of our nursery. As I mentioned, public opinion has tendency to sway our decisions and in business can be critical, and so begins my informal “pole” (sorry, inside joke) or poll… Keeping in mind my play on words I’ll leave you with your three choices to vote from: 1.) Wild Hare Farm, 2.) Gray Hare Farm, 3.) Late Bloomer’s Nursery.
Don’t be shy! Voice your opinion and we’ll see if it compares to friends and family who have already voted.

Thirty Years

Almost thirty years before this photo was taken of Corey and Buddy, a seventeen year old girl and her big sorrel gelding were striking a similar pose for her “senior picture”, as she approached her high school graduation. A girl, who at the time, had her mind set on the next leg of her journey being that of her as an animal science major (more specifically, equine) at a neighboring community college, not quite sure of where her aspirations would lead her. The only goal she was positive of, being that of securing a vocation which would leave her embedded in the only life she had ever known and had grown up loving. Life on a farm.
Circumstances sometimes force a shift in our goals, changing needs and blurring aspirations, altering the course of our lives. What rarely changes through out it all are our passions. The parts of our personality defining our character, often times leading us in directions we aren’t even conscience of at the time.
If you’re wondering by now where all of my philosophical meanderings are leading to in this post, it’s to the topic of karma. A subject of little consideration to me in the past. But while striving toward current objectives, I reflect on the conditions that have brought me here, and find it worthy of contemplation when considering the future.
You see, I am back to where I began. The college I attend, now as a horticulture major, seeking the education I consider necessary to secure my goal, is that same little community college I aspired to attend almost thirty years ago. The goal has not changed as I still love the farm and the promise of its existence. My passion of nature, and the wonderment it brings, handed down to my children.
Still wondering where karma comes in to play? As fate would have it, the head of the horticulture department where I now attend hinges his teaching practices on a philosophy of student led learning. The younger sibling of a man with special needs, his goal for his undergraduates to leave his instruction with knowledge detailed to their own requirements as well as curriculum specific. And if that’s not convincing enough, my Ag Chemicals instructor is the same man who would have supervised my education in equine science all those thirty years ago. Whether by my own hand or that of fate, late bloomer that I am, it seems I am now exactly where I was meant to be.