Spring Vibrations

Impending lambs are a sure sign of spring, and I can feel that vibration humming beneath everything right now

Mar 16, 2026

Stepping out of the farmhouse into the brisk morning, I inhaled deeply—crisp air carrying the faint mustiness of thawing mud and muck alongside the electric scent of petrichor and geosmin. Rich and loamy, it’s a scent that says life is coming back to the land, and my heart thrills at the smell of it.

Spring resonates within me on a soul-deep, almost primal level. There’s a vibration—an undercurrent—that begins long before the first visible signs arrive. Barely perceptible, but if you live and work close to the land, you feel it before you can see it.

This spring feels different somehow. Like something in me has been waiting—not just for the snow to melt, but for this. For a season that finally matches the life I’ve been working toward all these years.

And like the landscape coming back to life after a long winter, I am fairly thrumming with excitement. Lambs are just a few weeks away, and the first seedlings are thriving under the grow lights. Hold onto your hats, farm friends, cuz the season is upon us!

HI. I’m Sam from Maine Homestead Life, a newsletter that teaches the skills our grandparents knew: how to grow, raise, and make REAL food and live independently from corporate food systems.

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In This Post:

🚫False Spring
☝️Happenings on the Farm
👀Sneak Peek at This Week’s Projects
🐑Spring Vibrations
🫂Community Updates

🚫False Spring

Ah, False Spring. Maine's most beloved seasonal tradition—a few glorious warm days just long enough to get your hopes up, before winter comes roaring back for one last word. We fall for it every single year, and we'll fall for it again next year too.

☝️Happenings on the Farm

🌳PRUNING GIGS
I managed to scheme up a method for hauling my ladder on top of the tiny car I’m currently driving. The gigs themselves are on hold until the snow melts and the orchards dry out a bit—though I did get out to meet with one property owner to talk through their project. A dozen or so mature fruit trees in need of some TLC, making it the biggest orchard I’ve tackled so far. I’m stoked.

I really love working with fruit trees.

🛻ANNUAL FEDCO PILGRIMAGE
To spare myself the freight charge associated with purchase of bulk soil amendments and organic fertilizers—and since their warehouse is located just under an hour from the farm in Clinton, Maine—I make an annual Fedco pilgrimage to pickup my pre-season supplies.

I've planted twenty-some fruit trees at Runamuk over the years, but our poor, sandy soil—combined with relentless pressure from the local deer—has made it a slow go. They've struggled to gain size, let alone produce fruit. I'm hoping some targeted amendments this season will give them a boost.

With this in mind, I’ve purchased a hundred pounds of Fedco’s “Fruition Mix” (largely gypsum and non-gmo soybeal meal, potassium, and azomite in a compost base), and 30-pounds of their “Hole-istic Spring Planting Mix” (a blend of phosphate, alfalfa meal, azomite and K-Mag in a base of worm castings).

spring preparations for the homestead — Fedco’s Organic Grower’s Supply in Clinton, ME.

🌱GROWING GARDENERS

For the second year running, the Greater Franklin Food Council has allocated funds for my role as school garden coach at Kingfield Elementary. This week we held our first Green Team meeting of the season—a sure sign that spring is getting near.

I met with garden coordinator and 2nd grade teacher Erica Luce, along with 4th grade teacher and Green Team member Anna Plog, to start laying the groundwork for what’s ahead. This year’s theme is the Three Sisters, with a focus on indigenous peoples and their relationship to the land—a rich topic connecting food, culture, and history in ways that resonate far beyond the garden beds.🌽

My job is to support the school’s garden program, bringing my knowledge and experience of growing food and feeding people to both staff and students. It’s work I find genuinely meaningful, and I’m looking forward to watching the kids dig in.

🍕”PIZZA DOUGH”

Once before, I made an absolutely scrumptious sourdough loaf that BraeTek dubbed “Pizza Dough” — stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, and cubed chunks of mozzarella. With grocery costs climbing and no garden last year to offset the expense, I’ve been exceedingly frugal with the food budget. But this week I finally splurged on the ingredients to make this delectable bread again.

subsistence farming — My sun-dried tomato, pesto and mozzarella sourdough boule.

👀Sneak Peek at This Week’s Projects

Watch weather for an opening to begin pruning gigs
Replace bluebird houses ahead of the springtime crush for nesting sites🐦
Set up the new wifi-extender and bring the lamb-cams online
Assemble the lambing bin to have all supplies ready in one place
Repair the broken lambing-pen gate and reinstall both in the nursery
Monthly grocery stock up
Ostara celebrations🐇

🐑Spring Vibrations

Wading through the crush of ewes with the bucket of grain, I made my way around the sheep-shed to retrieve the round plastic sled from where it hung off a post. I laid the thing on the ground, poured the grain out, and the seven girls all crowded around.

While they were distracted, I took the opportunity to perform a “bag check”—inspecting udders and hoo-ha’s to see how the expectant ewes were progressing. It’s still early days yet—with an estimated due date of March 31st—but as labor approaches, udders will fill up, ligaments soften, hips will shift, and the vulva will soften and widen. Visible discharge means labor is imminent or already underway.

spring vibrations — Helen is my flock matriarch and champion mom. Her udder is already getting big and I wonder if she’ll even make it two more weeks!

Impending lambs are a sure sign of spring, and I can feel that vibration humming beneath everything right now. After missing the planting window last year while I was working in the school kitchen, I’m eager to get back in the garden—and more than that, to shift gears entirely. For years, farming meant looking outward—toward markets, toward CSA members, toward the community and the greater good. It had to. I needed to earn my way toward a home and a piece of land my family could count on. That work mattered. It still does—but somewhere in the hustle of growing food for everyone else, my kitchen got left behind. My table. My family.

👩‍🌾This spring, I find myself farming to fill the pantry—to grow good food and feed the people I love. Subsistence farming, in the truest sense. It’s a quieter ambition than saving the local food system, maybe. But it’s mine, and it feels like solid ground beneath my feet.

I can feel those spring vibrations keening inside me.

With pruning gigs on the calendar, seedlings under the lights, lambs on the way, and good bread on the table—I think it’s possible—just maybe—that I’ve finally arrived.

Sending love and good juju to you and yours.

Your friendly neighborhood farmer,

—Sam

🫂Community Updates

THIS WEEK’S HOW-TO ARTICLE:

4 Stepping Stones to Bootstrap Your Homestead

Mar 11

I’ve always thought of my farm as a giant boulder on a long and winding path. Some days I’m pushing with everything I’ve got and it barely moves. Other days it’s rolling on its own and I’m running to keep up. 🏃‍♀️Thirty years into this farmish journey, I can tell you with certainty: the goal is never one heroic push.

Read full story

Maine Homestead Life

4 Stepping Stones to Bootstrap Your Homestead

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