The last freeze of the season came a couple of days ago, making a monkey of my hope and work.

I tried, before the freeze, to cover my tender plants with straw and row cover, but I didn’t have enough stock-piled, or extra cash to buy more, so I lost a hundreds of dollars of potential produce. Sure, I can always replant, but those plants represent time and money wasted. I’m such a dummy to have transplanted the warm-weather crops out into the field before our official last frost date (which is generally around Mother’s Day).

Sigh.

This coming week, I have my work cut out for me, apparently: warm-weather crops to restart in trays, direct-seeding other warm-weather crops (because, SURPRISE!, by Wednesday, it will be 80 degrees, and I’ll be putting corn seeds into the ground), tree-planting, herb and flower planting, AND summer session has begun at the college, and I have almost 50 students to tend to, daily. If only they were as delightful as plants…

In happier news, my cover crop has begun to germinate, and a neighbor came by with a bush hog and cut our grass after seeing me make very small progress with a weed wacker. So it’s official: my grass is cut. The entire yard. Finally. Now, to get that major mower so I can maintain the yard, rather than making pitiful swaths everyday that culminate in a lot of nothing.

So, net-net, I got a reminder that farming is about hard work, failure, starting again, and always, the weather, which cannot be controlled. It’s all okay, though, because I’m lucky enough to have the energy and time to engage in this set-back. It’s only the beginning of May, and those farmers who have high tunnels and greenhouses will certainly be ahead of the game, but big deal: it’s not a competition.