The Concise Oxford Dictionary's definition of "grit" in the colloquial sense, reads: 
Strength of character, pluck, endurance. 

To which I'd like to add:
1. Spending an entire afternoon and early evening doggedly broadcasting seed with a manual spreader over a rough, sloping 1.5 hectare (approximately 4.5 acres) paddock, then harrowing it in the tractor. 
2. Watching while torrential rain washes most of it away over the following week -- and not weeping.

So I guess the next post should be about our efforts to renew our pasture. . .

Posted by Farmer Nik

Just when we thought we'd almost recovered and caught up with everything after the totally mental month that was March, Farmer Wan discovered these:

Note that there are five of them. Five. Plural. In 2012 and 2013, the season began with singles -- lone, brave little blooms that shoved their heads up first to take a look and report back to the others. We had plenty of time to get excited and to speculate about the size of the harvest. This year, with five flowers on Day One. . . well, who knows. It'll either be huge or it's the entire haul. That would be un-fun.

I took a bit more care with the plants this time, watering them with worm tea when they were actively growing last winter. Once they had all died away in early summer, we didn't do much to the beds except weed them two or three times and top them up with compost. It's been a mark of how busy we've been that the topping up bizzo didn't actually get finished until the end of last week. Ah well. Saffron plants are tough little suckers. We breed 'em resilient up here in the mountains.

I'll try to update more frequently from now on. She said optimistically.

Posted by Farmer Nik