July! The Heat, The Bounty

IT’S GO TIME
The farm is producing…despite the extreme heat and the dry weather we have had in Brookville, it’s all growing so fast. It’s the combination of the long daylight hours and the warm night temperatures that have plants growing at a rapid pace. Can we keep up? The answer is no. There is no keeping up, there is only being along for the ride. The field, the regeneratively-managed field, is so full of life…be it insects, ‘weeds’, and our crops. We find that at a certain time in July we have to find a way to be happy with riding the wave, rather than having a perfectly manicured field.
The field is pumping now and there is squash galore, carrots and beets coming to fruition, and tomatoes waiting to ripen on our plants. We’re here…and if you can’t tell from my late newsletter blast, we are in the weeds.
WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO?
Each month that I sit down to collect my thoughts and write, I take a bit of time to reflect. Thinking over the politically-charged and divisive month we just experienced, I lean toward staying quiet. There is so much noise out and about and I just hope that every one of you takes the time to find your place of calm to digest and accept the current state of affairs. I look forward to more peaceful times, which I convince myself are coming for baby Jack and his sister when I look into his eyes. After all, it seems that regeneration is the natural course of our living world following a time of hurt.
With all going on in our world, it is hard to leave emotional energy for our own personal toils. This year has been a year of intensity for us. Intense joy…welcoming Jack to our lives…sheep…a hoop house. Intense work…learning how to grow our family and business without allowing ourselves to do too much and lose sight of the joy of what we do. Some weeks feel like a series of challenges, which test your resiliency and bring you to your knees. Why do we do this? Why do we run our own business and work with mother nature, who is so utterly unpredictable and sometimes unfair? I’ll let Wendell Berry take this one:
“Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide.”
It is after the weekend crescendo of bringing food to market that I can finally wind down into the evening with my loves on this beautiful piece of land that we inhabit…watching the fireflies starting to show themselves, when I can collect myself and shoo away my worries (and the evening mosquitos) and remember…we are creating our own lives on this farm. Every day with each other. We are spending our days caring for the land and feeding people, chasing our curiosities, and growing from our shortfalls. What a life and a luxury.