It’s been one year since I moved to Jackson, WY. April in the Tetons is a dynamic period; winter storms still blow in and hammer the mountains with snow, while migrating osprey and blue birds return from their warm southern winter retreats. The silence of winter has been broken by sounds of songbirds flitting around shrub branches around my house. I’ve been gone for two weeks studying permaculture at the Lyons Farmette in Colorado, and in that time summer has become more than just an abstract thought.
Farming in a cold zone three area where it can snow any month of the year and the growing season is only a few short months may seem somewhat crazy, but it is being done with success. Tomorrow I begin an apprenticeship at the Mountain Meadows Organic Farm, located just south of Snow King Mountain, which rises 1,500’ above the little town of Jackson. I visited with owners Dick and Sandy Shrumptine a few weeks ago, when the whole valley was still in the grip of winter to visit and discuss ideas for the summer with them. Walking around the property, we could just see the tops of the fence posts used to keep out deer from Dick’s garden. “They eat pretty much anything they can except for the spruce trees,” he told me. With a snow pack over 120% of normal life hasn’t exactly been easy for the deer. As if to prove the point in that moment I looked out the window and watched one happily browsing on a tall blue spruce in his yard.
Wildlife are just one of the challenges for high alpine farming, season extension another. In preparations for the still distant summer we will be working to get the hoop house ready, and taking advantage of the greenhouse attached to the south wall of Dick and Sandy’s house to start all of our plants for the year. It is a wonderful thing to be able to work alongside deep piles of slowly melting snow while knowing that we will be able to enjoy skiing the steeps of Grand Teton National Park for another 2 months. Here’s to looking forward but thinking present!
Spring in Jackson, WY
Yup, Spring in the Tetons.