Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.
Written by A.A. Milne, from When We Were Very Young (Winnie-the-Pooh, #3)

As the daffodils are lifting their yellow heads, they are bringing feelings of hope, joy and new beginnings after another bout with local flooding.

Here in Owsley, we have been in clean up and repair mode in our businesses, homes, farms and gardens. Our garden project will again this year be playing a vital role in replacing lost seed stores, lost garden tools and lost preserved food supplies. Last year’s participants are sayin’: “Can’t wait to get started”! “I’ve got almost all of last year’s potato crop eat, can’t wait to start planting”! “We’re ready for spring and planting”! “Right now, we are in the calm before the storm of planting”!

In the works now:
Digital Library Plans
Our group is already actively planning their gardens and the best ways to meet our community’s needs. One request from members we that we are actively working toward is making a group social media page to digitally store our garden and food preservation related files of how to, answered questions, recipes and resources in addition to traditional paper so that they can still be accessed after a home disaster.

Planning Your Garden Workshop.
Here we are welcoming new and old members, deciding what foods everyone wants to grow in their gardens, planning garden layouts with our local extension ag agent, joining the group page and the chat page along with assessing flood damage to local gardens to determine what our members need for flood recovery over the course of this season.

Prepping For Spring and Turning Ground.
We are cleaning up winter debris, repairing damage and getting ready to turn ground to begin planting our early crops.

Partnership with Owsley County FFA
We will once again be working with the Owsley County FFA Chapter with their greenhouse plant sales and their garden on the school farm. This gives students a great hands on experience and helps them raise money from the plant and vegetable sales for their program.

Together, we will raise our heads to sun once again, show off our determination and hard work, just as the daffodils do each and every spring to once again experience the joy of working the land and the sense of community we share with each other while growing what we eat!