notes from the country -- corona virus

We sometimes remind ourselves  -- or other people -- that one milks cows in February/March, not just for the milk one gets in February/March, but more significantly in order to have lactating cows in April and May.  With lactating cows one can face anything, even a corona virus quarantine.And here it is April, and, earlier than usual, we have four inches of grass, in places as much as eight.  With caution we are putting the cows out on big paddocks and monitoring their impact.  In 36 hours the milk coming up to the house has almost tripled, and the sad three or four gallons per day we were seeing only a few days ago is closer to ten.  The chickens are relieved; so are the pigs; their protein ration, recently a little thin, will spike once more.   And the humans are relieved -- partly because we no longer have to make decisions about the relative importance of cream for butter making and cream for coffee (the horns of a dilemma, if ever a dilemma had horns) -- and partly because milk is the indicator par excellence of the fructitude of a farm.   With milk, there is plenty.  While cows yet turn grass into this most delicious, versatile, and wholesome food, then, however uncertain the future may look, God is still in His Heaven, and all is right -- if not with the world as a whole, at least with the little piece of it over which we have any significant impact.  Coffee with cream AND toast with butter.Have a blessed Holy Week.