what do ya know

ever since i left brooklyn, and my life got flipped, turned upside down, my sense of awareness has changed in previously unthinkable ways.  farming, which relies heavily on a sense of perception, has given me an appreciation for the tiniest minutiae of every day life.  small, in between moments.  blink moments.  background sounds.  and breaths.  in fact, in this way farming is similar to stock trading.  both require the ability to absorb a swarm of fleeting information which is to be processed through intuition.  respond to without hesitation. immediate, real time, problem solving.  always trying to be right more than wrong. 

down in georgia, my favorite examples of these moments are those that affirm to me that—yes, holy shit, i’m really farming.  there are obvious signs too, of course.  you know, like when i ride a tractor, have a fridge that looks like this, or walk out onto my deck at home to water hundreds of feet of future delicious organic vegetables.  current status:  be-be.   

but like i said, i find the sweetest moments to be the one’s in between.  when you water the vegetable starts, it produces a sound i’ve never heard before, but now love.  the trays of starts, laying side by side, with holes in their bottoms, get watered for a solid few minutes.  some of the water falls in between the trays, some on the plants.  some pools in the tiny soil cups, some drizzles through.  as the drips drop, and splat into nothing, the sound it makes is the quietest waterfall you’ll ever hear.  a cascade—not of heavy flow—but of drops.  a cascading of pit-pit-pit’s to the ground in the most soothing of displays. 

at that moment, i know i’m farming.