It looks like Spring is going to make at least a brief appearance next week, and where I live, that means it’s time to start thinking of winter. The arrival of Spring means I think ahead, something I never much did until I lived on a farm.

A farm has its own life, it’s own rituals, it’s own seasons.

A lot depends on thinking ahead – the animals, the farmhouse. I believe in good stewardship of the farm and the animals, and that means everybody eats when they are supposed to eat, every day. And we care for our farmhouse,  as it has cared for us.

Spring is a beautiful thing around here, we appreciate the warmth and the color returning to our lives. But it is also the time to prepare for the next winter, that can’t be don’t when the cold is upon us, it’s too late.

This week, I called Sandy Adams and we exchanged our annual pleasantries – she told me about her new granddaughter Charlotte, I told her about mine, we joked about the winter.

Then we got down to business. I ordered 110 bales of hay to be ferried over in small loads – no hurry – over the Spring and mid-summer, mostly first cut, some second cut as a treat and energy boost on cold days and nights. That will cost about $1,000.

I’ll call the farrier and get Lulu and Fanny’s hooves trimmed. I called the shearer and asked her to come – Liz is replacing Jim McRae, who is retiring (he says, but I bet he shows up).

I called Braymer Fuels and asked for the oil heater to be cleaned and checked.

I called the chimney sweep to come in June and clean out the wood stoves and prepare them for next year.

I called Greg Burch and ordered seven cords of firewood. Usually we order five, but we nearly ran out this winter, and we had seven cords.

I spread these orders and deliveries over time to ease the cost coming all at once.

I called Jay Bridge and asked if he could replace the tiles on the front porch roof, they are falling apart. And also to fill the hole in the rood the birds are using for nests. Some tiles blew off the big barn roof during the windstorms, he can fix them too.

I called Vince Vecchione to come over and spread the manure around the pastures for fertilization.

I will call Ted Emerson and  scheduled some brush hogging of the pastures for June.

I will call Todd Mason to come and tighten the fences. The sheep got out once four years ago, it will not happen again.

I’m looking for somebody to help us stack wood.

Maria and I love to do it (I can’t do as much as her) and by August we are tired, and also sick of it, so we need some strong  people to come and help us. Somebody always appears.

This weekend, we will go to a nursery and get some seeds for the gardens. Maria has expanded our Three Sisters Garden, it will be almost twice as big. Soon, Maria will take out the storm windows in her studio.

Maria never makes these phone calls or winter plans – she doesn’t like to  use the phone or haggle. I like working the phones, getting set.  I love preparing for winter, it goes on all Spring and Summer, and it touches something ancient in me.  It just falls to me.

I love planning for the winter, it fills something old and nurturing in me. I feel like a father in some ways.

There is no haggling any more. These are all good and honest people I have known for years, they will charge me a fair price, they always do. We always take a few minutes to chat and catch up, but everybody is busy in the Spring, they can’t stay too long.

There are few richer and more satisfying feelings that to look up in September and see a woodshed stacked with wood, a barn full of fresh hay, two clean and ready wood stoves, a clean and humming oil heater, and the big pile of donkey manure gone.

I have worked hard to build these good relationships and keep them. I don’t squawk about prices, I pay right away.

This weekend, we’re going to get a new tree to plant in the yard for the farm residents of the future, we want there to always be shade and shelter. People did it for us for over 200 years and we want to pay it forward, there are beautiful old shade trees all around the farmhouse.

That, I know, is a farm tradition. You think of the people down the road.