My aunt gave me a book written by a man who grew up a couple miles from my grandmother, during the depression, in southern Indiana on a small farm among the coal mines. The stories were familiar to what I remember hearing from her and others of her generation. It describes how they subsisted off the land. Pies were very seasonal and started in the spring with rhubarb and progressed to strawberry, then cherry, peach and apple as the season developed each new fruit. I’ve been working on doing the same on my farm and being able to add rhubarb to the lineup allows that to start even sooner in the spring.
Rhubarb was something I was forced to eat as a kid, in pies and breads, and grew to really dislike. As an adult, I have thus avoided rhubarb for decades. Last year, my daughter planted some in her garden and last week was able to harvest it for the first time. She
made it into a pie, (strawberry/rhubarb) which I was compelled to try. WOW. I didn’t realize what I had been missing. She is turning in to quite the baker. Sarah now has the goal to get me to enjoy eating her broccoli this summer.
(Sarah cheated on this pie and used store bought strawberries, which are not quite ripe yet here: pictured just blooming with the pie)
Our spring here has been cool and wet. It was April before we were able to plant any oats, which then took over 2 weeks to come up (due to the lack of heat). The first planted oats are up now and it’s reassuring to see another field of green among the mostly bare gray fields of neighbor’s corn and soybeans yet to emerge. All of us racing against the next rain when we do get a chance to be in the fields.
Yesterday we were again racing against a rain to plant spring wheat. It’s still forecast to be cool and wet in the near future, so maybe our late planted small grains won’t notice the calendar. (My other grandmother was married in late April, during a cool, wet spring in which oats had not yet been planted. The story was told that her wedding was contingent on the oats being planted. Or at least that no one would attend if they could be in the fields, including the groom. But the weather did break, the oats did get planted just prior to her wedding, which proceeded as planned.) 
The 2nd year clover is getting enough growth to begin turning cows out on. It will be their first fresh crop of the year after eating hay all winter.
PIE CRUST RECIPE
used for pie in picture above.
Video of my daughter walking through the recipe. https://qualityorganic.net/pie-crust.html
3 cups flour (Purple Straw)
1 ¼ tsp. Salt
1 ½ cup butter (3 sticks)
1 TB white vinegar
1 egg
1/2-2/3 cup ice water
