On the Bright Side, Groundhogs are Cute

Except ones that eat two hundred heads of lettuce and half a row of green beans in a single evening snack. Out of OUR garden. He apparently worked up an appetite by digging under the new fence. Also on the bright side, my drip tape irrigation is still nice and dry, stored in the barn. Water is good, except when it floods, and wipes out your new plantings. If you strolled last week, you would have seen carrots, beans, and corn under water. Cool weather is nice too, except when late frost kills your sweet corn and - you guessed it, more beans. (The night of May 18 also stunted some covered heirloom tomatoes, which are better now.) As a farmer, there are so many variables associated with growing food that the weather challenge sometimes is overwhelming. Maybe that's why I love farming: it leaves my brain as sore as my muscles. Anyone need a pet groundhog? Reply needed immediately.

See You Tomorrow

for harvest! Pick-up will be held on the porch of the house between 11 and 3. We can't wait!

1979, no. X by Wendell Berry (The Sabbath Poems)

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we're asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.