Spring: A Quiet Kind of Progress
After a long Midwest winter, it’s easy to think of spring as something that suddenly arrives: a rush of green, a burst of activity, a return to productivity. But when your co-worker is Mother Nature, you learn quickly that progress doesn’t happen on demand. It happens when conditions are right.
Working with Nature
On our regenerative farm, we talk a lot about working with nature instead of trying to control it. That means paying close attention and making decisions that support the natural systems already at work. Winter, for example, isn’t a pause in productivity, it’s a period of necessary rest and restoration. Beneath the frozen surface, microbes are still working and the soil is quietly rebuilding itself for the season ahead.
Slow and Steady Waves of Progress
In the spring, you can observe a slow unfolding rather than a rush back into productivity. The soil warms gradually. New plant growth slowly emerges. Birds return, not all at once, but in waves.
My kids, Calvin and Violet, enjoying the first spring dandelions.
Crimson clover blooming in the pastures.
Growth Happens in Time
Every piece of nature responds to surrounding conditions, not a calendar or clock. There’s a quiet confidence to that process; an important reminder that real growth happens in its own time, not just because the calendar says it should.
Give Yourself Grace
We don’t always give ourselves that same grace. We expect constant motion, constant output, constant growth. But just like pastures need time to recover after grazing, people need seasons of rest before renewal. Pushing productivity beyond what our resources can support doesn’t lead to healthy results on the farm OR in life.
Quiet Progress All Around
This spring, whether you’re walking through a pasture, tending a garden, or simply watching the trees bud outside your window, I invite you to slow down and notice the quiet kind of progress happening all around you. Growth doesn’t have to be loud to be meaningful. Sometimes the most powerful change happens one small green leaf at a time.
Rosie (Sanderson) Trump farms with her family in Clare where they raise grain and livestock. She also has a career in ag marketing/communications. Rosie and her husband Corey have two children, Violet and Calvin.