I am a farmer

I am a farmer.

Just check the past two censuses and it will tell you that my official "profession" is "farmer".

Yesterday, I planted 3,000 maple trees.

I own 75 acres of land, free and clear of any mortgage, containing some of the most beautiful maple trees I've ever seen in my life. While my husband's name is technically also on the deed to my farm, he promised me many years ago that if I would just marry him, he would buy me a farm... therefore...

I own a farm.

It took 13 years of marriage to get here, but 16 years after that... I'm still here. A lot of things have come and gone in that time. Most of my children have grown up and left me. Several animals have been born and died, many things have come and gone, but when I look out the window, my farm is always there. Hay harvest always comes during the summer, and by the end of the year, the corn and beans have been harvested as well. It all brings peace to my soul.

On this property, I have "farmed" a lot of different things... chickens, fresh milk, farm fresh eggs, purebred Jersey milk cows, horses, ducks, lots of cats, lots and lots of hay, and even corn and soybeans (I haven't actually sold any soybeans, cats or corn, but the rest of the items listed above have turned a legitimate profit). Trees seemed a natural addition to the list… especially considering the stunningly, beautiful maple trees in my front yard. Growing more of them seems like a pretty great idea.

So... yesterday, between babysitting, grocery shopping, cleaning the kitchen, and the rest of “life”... I planted 3,000 little maple trees! It was only in seed form, but it was still a lot of work!

This quest began October 1st, collecting the seeds, picking them up from all over the yard (…if you don't think that sounds like hard work, just try bending over and picking something up 3,000 times). I then inspected and "de-winged" them, finally making a selection of several thousand. I didn't really know how to grow a maple tree from seed, so I thought a few trials were in order.

By the evening of October 1st, the seed experiments began. I soaked them, cracked them, froze them, pried them open to inspect their innards, and even de-hulled a score of them altogether. Last, but not least, I researched them to death. Ultimately, they were all duly soaked in groups of 20, in filtered water, "Thrive" water, Shultz plant food, Miracle grow and even Noni juice. I would have used beer (a guaranteed plant stimulant), had I not been too mousy to go out and buy it. Eventually, I put them between wet, chemical free paper towels, inside of baggies and let them sit, undisturbed. In the past, this has been a sure-fire way to successfully sprout pretty much anything.

Several disruptions, a family crisis, a trip to California and two birthdays later, at the end of said month, I opened up all the baggies to inspect the "goods". Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing... bag after bag after bag it appeared that the only thing I’d managed to coax into growth was a small amount of mold.

In the end, after all those failures, I decided Mother Nature knew best. I blackened my fingers putting all of those 3,000 seeds into their little growing pots, arranging them in the most advantageous way that I could, and at the end of the day, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a lot of work, but it was done.

Time and nature will need to do the rest. I’ve sown my crop and like all good farmers, will need to patiently wait to see the fruits of harvest.

I am a farmer… at least that’s what the census says.