In March, the final days of winter break perpetually longer and brighter over a thawing landscape of terrestrial inhabitants who reside at Worlds End, a farm situated at the 42nd parallel North, where the earth's rotational speed is roughly equal to the speed of sound. We enjoy a full four seasons; though not evenly distributed. The wintering type fare well here, I myself tolerate it poorly in exchange for the high drama of what the locals call a fast and furious growing season. For us, that season includes a diversified homestead including but not limited to; a cut flower and vegetable production, 15 laying hens, about 200 broilers (better known as meat chickens), and a flock of 20 Icelandic sheep kept for fiber and meat.

The land is 107 acres and sits in a swath of rocky clay soil in the Mohawk Valley of New York State, 30 miles West of Albany. The Mohawk Indians called themselves ‘people of the flint’ and were known as fierce warriors. They were semi-nomadic and lived in matriarchal linked communities of 20 or so families. Sometime in the early 17th century the Mohawk helped form the Iroquois Nation; a peaceful agreement between the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes — an organization on which the early Americans based their new political system (after they massacred or displaced the native peoples that inspired them.)

The farmhouse at Worlds End farm, built around 1825 in the Greek Revival style popular at the time, is fully intact and after ten years of constant repair and haphazard stabs at decoration, is livable by modest modern standards. This includes new wiring, a working stove (we cooked outside on a gas grill for the first 9 years) and some Farrow and Ball paint.

The first spring I planted 100 hellebores in a shady outcropping opposite the farm house. Now in mid-March I look for the first signs of these flowers — they lead the race out of the gate with narcissus, tulips and ranunculus quick to follow. One of my favorite hellebores is named ‘pink frost’ a color that more accurately resembles a bad bruise. Needless to say, it’s in my preferred color palette; and this hellebore does the heavy lifting in my floral design work by creating tension and nuance amongst the ubiquitous and screaming high-visibility yellows of early spring.

First, as the snow recedes, we begin hauling and splitting wood from the back 60 acres of forest to restock the emaciated woodshed. Then there is greenhouse work — the seeding and propagating of food and flowers in the sometimes 90+ degree miracle achievable by layers of polyethylene and glass. Lambing begins around March 25th by which time the measured pace gains operatic build. By June life on the farm is like a runaway train, there is a frenzy of social activity as we open the farm to visitors on weekends and there is the never-ending work of garden bed preparations and planting. The work becomes sweaty, and buggy, the daily moving of sheep, lambs and chickens daily to new grassy pasture.

These last few years many new tantalizing things and people and ideas have populated this place and my driving thirst for dream flowers has faded into the background. Flowers and indeed floristry very much propelled me on this path, and now I have changed course as I set my sights on a bigger beauty: catalyzing new ways of living (and dying) together in our complicated world. So it goes with any sort of evolution, I think.