All of a sudden, just like that, there’s work to do. Lots of it. Winter has hung around so diligently (two more inches of snow last night), that spring now comes with a decided urgency.

Hard to believe we are starting our fifth season on the farm. It feels almost comfortable now—this routine, this life. But still, I find the promise of the very long hours and long days ahead a little daunting.

It isn’t pretty out there, but there’s been just enough melting, just enough warming, to let us get into the hoop house and the storage sheds and start cleaning and repairing—and seeding.

Roy patched up the hoop house on Sunday, repairing tears and replacing and removing lumber here and there.

Amazing that the hoop house came through the winter without major damage.

I cleaned and organized all the clutter, dumping over buckets of odd tools to sift through the detritus of fabric staples and worn gloves, balls of string and clothespins, and yes, plastic snakes.

I cleaned out one of the storage sheds, too, effectively meaning I just moved things from one place to the other…

…Things lIke fluffy clouds of fabric row cover, which I finally shoved under the potting bench in the hoop house, where they can live scrunched up until needed.

The Aracaunas stood outside the shed while I was working, shaking their heads.

Only a few heads of lettuce survived the winter in the hoop house.

So we went ahead and started clearing out the beds, bringing in some compost, and getting them ready for kale and arugula seeding.

This is the easy stuff, this little hoop house, that little storage shed. But you have to start somewhere.