The Fields Are Disked. Go Float.

Today was hot.

Not it's a little warm outside hot.

Mississippi-in-July, sitting-on-a-tractor, sun-beating-down, why-did-I-decide-to-start-a-flower-farm-at-fifty hot.

But the fields needed to be disked.

So I climbed on the tractor.

One field will eventually hold our production rows and peonies. The other is the entrance meadow I've spent months imagining filled with wildflowers and pollinators.

Today, they were dirt.

Freshly worked, uneven, very unglamorous dirt.

And I couldn't have been happier.

Because for months, Blossom Bottom Farm has existed in notebooks and spreadsheets. Crop plans. Seed inventories. Production calendars. Bed layouts. Revenue projections.

I've counted seeds.

I've calculated successions.

I've researched flowers I had never heard of a year ago.

And today, sitting on that tractor, I could actually see it.

The beginning.

By the time I finished, I was hot, dirty and exhausted.

So I got in the pool.

And almost immediately, my mind started doing what it always does.

What else needs to be done?

There is always something.

The lime needs to be spread.

The meadow will need to be sprayed again.

I need to measure the hydrangea area.

I need to test the water pressure.

There are supplies to order and irrigation to design and an old roadside stand waiting to be moved.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I had to remind myself of something I am still learning.

The fields are disked.

For today, that can be enough.

I have spent most of my life being very good at getting things done.

Thirty years of nursing probably reinforced that. You finish one thing and immediately look for the next thing that needs your attention.

There is always a next thing.

But I'm beginning to understand that if I'm not careful, I will build the life I've dreamed about and be too busy looking at the next task to notice I'm standing in it.

So today I floated in the pool.

I looked at a beautiful Mississippi sky.

And just beyond the house sat two freshly disked fields.

They don't look like much yet.

But I know what's coming.

Flowers.

Peonies.

A meadow full of butterflies and bees.

People walking through this property someday who have no idea how many spreadsheets, tractor hours, early mornings and slightly ridiculous ideas came before them.

Today, though, there was only dirt.

And a very tired woman floating in a pool.

And for once, I decided not to ask myself what I should do next.

The fields are disked.

Go float.

🌸