2004-03-10 - 8:15 a.m.
Spring is a hopeful time of year for farmers. I sometimes think God gave us winter as a time for farmers to forget the toils of the past season and regroup for the next yesr. Anything seems possible in the spring and hopes get high for a great season ahead. By the end of summer I'm fed up with the battle with weeds and bugs and birds, etc. It seems everything around you is conspiring to wear you down until you give up. As winter starts you slowly begin to forget just how tired and fed up you were. By mid-winter you're looking at seed catalogs and starting to plan for next year and as winter ends and spring begins you've totally forgotten the bad from last year and have a positive outlook that borders on giddy. This year is going to be better, I can feel it in my bones. The pessimist who walked around complaining last fall has been reborn as a blazing optimist who can't wait for the new season to start.
Now I really do remember the failures and troubles from the year before but somehow they seem small and insignificant. If I was a salesman I would really try my sales pitch on farmers in the early spring. Their attitude is so much better that their liable to buy anything. If there was no winter and the weeds and bugs never died and one growing season just melted into the next with no break I don't think I could take it. Some people might call that paradise but I think for me it would be a killer to endure. So I'll take the winter and it's cold because it too serves a purpose, and when spring rolls around I feel as fresh as the new green grass in the pastures.
