Joey Feek's winter tradition of choosing and planting seeds for spring planting season continues, with one big change. This year, the Joey + Rory singer is detailing her routine so her husband Rory can take notes. It’s a job he admits he’s not looking forward to taking over.

A new blog post at the This Life I Live Thursday morning (Feb. 4) shows photos of Joey’s seedlings. Her frail arms tend to egg shell pots in one snapshot, and another shows nearly 2-year-old Indiana looking on with enthusiasm. Rory explains that spring is Joey's favorite season, and she takes great pleasure in the preparation. It begins with selecting seeds in mid-January. She’ll start seedlings indoors before moving the operation outside.

This year, Joey asked her family to save egg shells so she could plant her seeds in the “natural containers that the good Lord has provided."

We had a pretty good cold spell here in Indiana after that… but then two days ago, the sun broke through the clouds and it almost felt like spring was in the air. And to make it even better, when we woke up yesterday, some of Joey’s seedlings had sprouted… like little arms stretching after a long sleep, the tiny seeds that she had planted had broken through the surface of the soil and sprung to life.

Rory admits he doesn’t want to learn her trade. He’s not looking forward to taking over. He wants to see his wife do it, and then watch her hoe and harvest and “can and freeze the fruit of her labor and feel the pride that she’s felt in the past knowing that ‘these sweet potatoes and beans and tomatoes are from our land,’ from her hands.”

But still, I sit beside her and smile and listen and take notes.  And I will keep the garden going.  Joey’s garden.

And I’m sure in time, I will learn to love it too. Because she loved it. And part of her will be with us… in every seed we plant, and every vegetable we harvest … and every bite we take.

The most stark statement comes at the end. “It’s hard for me to believe that there will be life after this cold, hard winter,” he writes, “and I think Joey knows that.”

Joey Feek is battling cancer and has been in home hospice at her parents’ house in Indiana since November. She’s made it her goal to live through mid-February, long enough to see her album of hymns be released (Feb. 14), watch the Grammys (Feb. 15) and see daughter Indiana turn two years old (Feb. 17). Taste of Country joins fans, friends and family in praying for miracle, and even more so for peace with His decision.

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