Sunflowers among the young pines.
Seven years ago, we started with a field.
When we bought our house, the two acres between our front yard and the country road were a field of neatly mowed weeds. The neighboring cotton and peanut fields didn’t care.
Freshly mowed, our field looked like the only one approved by the HOA representative with a clipboard in a neighborhood where every homeowner had their own idea about house paint colors. Left alone, the field’s true personality emerged: clover, tall grasses, weeds, and dirt under its fingernails.
We planted fourteen rows of pine trees that year. Carefully measured, lined up, and marked with flags with the precision any surveyor would have admired.
The trees were only six to eight inches tall. Our process was simple: dig a hole deep enough for the taproot, carefully push in the soil, tamp it down, then move on to the next flag. At bedtime, acetaminophen for our aching backs. We repeated the process until we’d planted the fourteen rows with thirty-six trees in each row.
The next year, our process was less precise. By last year, our process was to dig trenches with the tractor, plant trees, and declare it good enough.
Along the way, we planted clover for ground cover and mowed down the weeds around the perimeter of the field and trees to make a walking path for us and the dogs. The twice-a-day walk has become our family ritual.
This year, we planted a patch of sunflowers among the young pines.
The trees provide cover for quail and branches for songbirds to build their nests. The clover is for the bees. We’re hoping the sunflowers will produce seeds for the birds and our chickens, and a wave of yellow for us.
We started with a field. We weren’t trying to make it perfect. We were simply trying to make it a little better each year.
As we relax on the porch in the evening, watching the sky turn red while the chickens march into their coop and the dogs chase crickets, it’s working.
You keep reading; I’ll keep writing.
