The Field Notes
A Sunday pause for reflection, May 10th, 2026
Happy Mother’s Day to all who are mothering in any capacity. I pray your day and the week ahead is filled with grace, rest, and whatever nourishment you need most in this season.
While Mother’s Day can feel commercial at times, it does offer something meaningful: a collective pause to reflect on the role of the mother in our lives.
It is all too easy to move through life disconnected from what I think of as “mother energy”: love, compassion, sacrifice, nurturing, healing, and safety.
Our culture leans heavily into the masculine into speed, output, and constant forward motion.
Mother invites something different.
She asks us to slow down.
To be steady.
To reflect, adjust, and move forward with intention.
You can live this way but you will feel friction. Because it does not match the pace of the world around you.
My first year growing flowers for Mother’s Day was a success. This is my fifth year growing cut flowers, and usually our first bouquets aren’t ready until June. To have flowers ready by Mother’s Day required planning that began in January, planting in February, and months of careful management.
There were many nights I worried about deep freezes, even inside the high tunnel. Shade cloths, tarps, constant monitoring. Days spent checking irrigation, adding compost, venting for temperature swings, adding netting for support…
And then finally, harvest.
We hosted a pop-up at a local bakery Saturday morning and sold out quickly.
It felt like a confirmation: this little experiment had worked.
But more than that, it felt like something deeper had come full circle.
What keeps a farmer going when the harvest is months—or even years—away?
Prayer.
I kept imagining mothers receiving these flowers. Every seedling I tended was an act of devotion, to beauty, to joy, to care.
My offering to mothers.
Upcoming this week…a post on how to grow the easiest flower you can get your hands on.
Opportunities to join us at our farm:
We are currently looking a teacher to spend the summer with us, here is a quick description:
We are 20-30 minutes away from the Lake of the Ozarks which provides water recreation and summer activities, one hour way from Springfield which has big city amenities. Our town of Lebanon is growing, offering more and more activities and community connections.
We have been educators and farmers for over a decade and merge the two on our farm. We run a market garden, cut flower garden, medicinal plants, raise animals (dairy goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, guineas, dogs, cats), offer classes and education to our local community and beyond.
My two boys, 6.5 and 4 are amazing, smart, free spirited, love being outdoors, and very active. We have been homeschooling and this February I created a homeschool co-op so we could continue our journey with other families. Bloom Homeschool Nature Co-op.
This summer I am looking for a teacher to live with us to spend the mornings with the boys. Continue the rhythm of learning, adventure, crafting etc The afternoons would be open for you to participate in the farm life in the ways that inspire you. We had this model last year with a woman who is a teacher and it worked beautifully.
Since spring/summer are our high season we always bring in apprentices to support with the farm efforts, and bringing in a teacher fits into this nicely.
The exchange we can offer:
room and board
organic food
training in herbalism, beekeeping, market gardening, animal husbandry from either myself or my husband
official training and certification in permaculture (our in person course will be held in September)
We also may offer again events for children in our community through our Farm Camp program. We run a 3 hour program for kids to attend based on different topics around the farm. If I had a teacher here in time, we can run it together and a majority portion of the sales from that would go to the teacher.
If the teacher is interested in more profit sharing from product, market sales, events, etc that would be available. Please read about us and I sincerely hope you consider joining us! Feel free to pm me with any questions or follow up.
Other ways to engage with our farm:
Permaculture Design Certification in September - one of the best programs you can attend in the US
This spring has been a hard one for farmers in our region.
Storms brought heavy hail and wind, damaging crops and infrastructure across many farms, including ours. Our crops are now off schedule, which means our income is too.
This is part of the reality of farming that often goes unseen.
We continue to replant, repair, and move forward as farmers always do but it stretches us.
If you’ve ever considered supporting my work here through a paid subscription, this is a meaningful time to do so. Your support directly sustains our family, this land, and the work we are building.
I’m deeply grateful you’re here! Whether quietly reading or walking alongside us more closely.