It’s springtime at Red Dog! For me, springtime is filled with excitement and anticipation and working on the farm only highlights these emotions. It feels as though we get a front row seat to the changing of the seasons. It is important that we are ever-aware of the weather; the windows of dry sunshine and the pockets of precipitation, for field planning, greenhouse watering, and more. Springtime challenges us to emerge from our winter nest and begin the slow process of reintegrating back into the routine of working outside. It will never cease to amaze me that the ground, once a snowscape not too long ago, is now a home for new growth. I hope I am always this enchanted to see early spring color sneak out of the ground.

Another colorful feature of springtime at Red Dog is the tulip harvest. We saw the tulips peep their first color in the greenhouse in early March. What started as a slow, small harvest has exponentially grown into a mighty, everyday (even the weekends, tulips don’t care about a farmer’s weekend) harvest of crates and crates of tulips. I have enjoyed getting to know the personality of each tulip, from picking them in the fields, to bunching them in beautiful bouquets for orders, to bringing them home and watching them unfold in the heat and sun on the kitchen windowsill. I didn’t know I loved tulips so much! I never thought my relationship with tulips would grow any more intimate then buying them for my Grandma once a year on Mother’s Day. How cool it is to have such vibrancy be a part of your everyday?! I dig it!

However, I shouldn’t get too attached to them, as the season for tulips will be over in about a month. The tulips remind us, through their cycle of blooming and dropping of petals, that their beauty is impermanent, and such is the nature of farming. But the tulips will prime us for all the color and vegetables to come as we are sent off into the summertime. So bring your friend some tulips!

-Julia