While traveling to Stillwater, Okla., to cover the Southern National Holstein and Jersey shows we saw one of the best signs of spring – field work. Green pastures, daffodils and violets don’t hold a candle to the first turn of soil and the dust flying across an open field when the weather warms up and the sun begins to shine more consistently.

This also means women are left alone in the barn for chores, kids are handling all the heifer chores after baseball practice, more parts runs, field dinners and lots of time in a dusty truck following large farm equipment from field to field.

The house will soon look abandoned, the kitchen will be a mix of dinners on the run with coffee stains on the counters and at any time of the day or night you will hear the washing machine running with the haphazard load thrown in when someone needed clean underwear or a pair of work pants.

This time of year leaves no room for margins. It’s wall-to-wall working and running to catch up with impossible schedules. You will miss a birthday celebration and those darling cupcakes you saw on Pinterest that you were going to make for your daughter’s class, will be but a brief good intentioned thought blown away in the spring whirlwind we call planting season.

If you have a graduate you’re worried about the lawn, flower beds and remodeling the bathroom. If you don’t, you’re thankful you’re not that mom this year and you’ll be happy if the lawn gets mowed by Memorial Day.

If the school gets shut down for a week for COVID, you are secretly giddy because you know you’ll have more help in the barn and now you can haul twice the manure. You also know your 15-year-old will learn just as much math and science from treating a sick calf and helping with planting as they would sitting in a computer lab or on a zoom call with their algebra teacher.

Farming never ends and we are glad for it. Those who have carved out a living from raising livestock or tilling the land wouldn’t be happy waking up 365 days a year in a condo with nothing to push them through the days and weeks. They focus on weather and seasons and thrive on risk and chance. They are ready to adopt new technology but have a healthy respect for proven practices and admiration for the old faithful iron.

As we ramp up for another spring planting season, soak it up. You are blessed to enjoy the freedom of working the land that you own and control. A year ago, when the world came to a standstill, you kept moving forward because of your vocation. And this year we know the wealth of that freedom and the sweetness of its liberty.