Homesteading in Spring: April To-Do List

Reader Contribution by Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt and Wild Abundance
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There is a flourishing of life around us as we step into spring. It’s a time when energy rises, like sap swelling from the roots of trees, and we, like the plants around us, begin to blossom. This is a powerful season for the homesteader, for our garden projects can finally sprout in soil.

At Wild Abundance, a permaculture and primitive skills school in Barnardsville, North Carolina, this season is symbolized by the seed. For Frank Salzano, a partner at Wild Abundance, the spring, on the medicine wheel, represents the east, the beginning, the spark of life. In our daily lives, east is the morning. In our lifetime, east is our infancy, our childhood.

“Spring is a seed sprout,” says Salzano. “In temperate climates there are flowers and buds on trees: the earth is waking. It’s a time [rich with] pagan rituals, and [a time to honor] Jesus’ reincarnation.” Spring, as Salzano describes, brings with it a deep existential experience, a coming back to life with the plants and animals around us.

“When spring comes, we explode with growth,” says Natalie Bogwalker (pictured below in her garden), the founder of Wild Abundance and the Firefly Gathering. “Any project that happens in the spring, happens so quickly.” To help guide homesteaders through the season — and more specifically the month of April — Bogwalker, with contributions from Chloe Lieberman and Zev Friedman, has created a guide to homesteading projects perfect for the first flush of spring.

Keep in mind that this list of activities was created with the Southern Appalachian landscape in mind.

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