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The Four Seasons · Relatively Stable

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[music]
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SPEAKER_00: The Four Seasons,
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SPEAKER_00: an almanac for those who are emotionally dependent on mowing grass.
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SPEAKER_00: We're not even at the end of summer, and I'm already panicking about the winter.
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SPEAKER_00: Hear me out.
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SPEAKER_00: I've become obsessed with mowing the grass at the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: Obsessed.
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SPEAKER_00: I've written before about how this job was outsourced to trained lawn professionals
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SPEAKER_00: and dudes that I knew with tractors over the years.
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SPEAKER_00: Even after I'd secured a tractor of my very own and fell in love
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SPEAKER_00: with mowing our own fields,
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SPEAKER_00: the lawns and weed eating were attended by crews who did this for a living.
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SPEAKER_00: Then we packed up and moved last year,
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SPEAKER_00: and there was no longer room left in the budget to pay someone to keep
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SPEAKER_00: the grounds looking presentable.
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SPEAKER_00: I purchased a zero-turn mower off Facebook Marketplace.
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SPEAKER_00: I hit the jackpot on a refurbished behemoth,
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SPEAKER_00: but this purchase could have also gone terribly wrong.
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SPEAKER_00: I was lucky,
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SPEAKER_00: and I leaned into my research alongside people who were far more knowledgeable
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SPEAKER_00: about mowing deck sizes than I was.
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SPEAKER_00: The man who dropped off the machine drove an hour to reach us,
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SPEAKER_00: and he got out of the truck with his jaw dropped and an expression of pure awe
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SPEAKER_00: on his face.
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SPEAKER_00: He used to take care of the grass at Lavender Hill.
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SPEAKER_00: He knew these fields better than I did.
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SPEAKER_00: He had no idea where he was traveling until he plugged the address into his GPS.
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SPEAKER_00: I recently sent the man a text begging him to make another trip out here
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SPEAKER_00: and work his magic of greasing and sprucing so the machinery is ready to sit idly
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SPEAKER_00: through the winter.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the sitting idly through the winter that terrifies me.
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SPEAKER_00: This means I also will sit idly through the winter.
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SPEAKER_00: No grass to cut.
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SPEAKER_00: So what I'm writing about this week as the light changes its slant and
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SPEAKER_00: the earliest leaves are turning yellow is a backward-facing retrospective
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SPEAKER_00: as we near one whole entire year at the new farm.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm sick of looking over my shoulder.
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SPEAKER_00: I want to dream forward.
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SPEAKER_00: Before we get there,
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SPEAKER_00: join me for a tiny history lesson about the almanac,
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SPEAKER_00: An annual guide to the year ahead where people can gather information about
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SPEAKER_00: the weather,
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SPEAKER_00: the seasons,
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SPEAKER_00: how and when to plant,
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SPEAKER_00: find key astronomical data, and lots of practical wisdom for living.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a field manual for paying attention to the natural world.
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SPEAKER_00: There are two versions still in print in the United States,
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SPEAKER_00: and both are as old as our founding fathers.
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SPEAKER_00: The familiar yellow cover of the old Farmer's Almanac is still found
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SPEAKER_00: in grocery store checkout lines everywhere.
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SPEAKER_00: It's been continuously published since 1792.
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SPEAKER_00: The Farmer's Almanac arrived on the scene in 1818.
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SPEAKER_00: This beloved publication is also a backward-facing glimpse into the future.
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SPEAKER_00: Because in 2025, they announced that the 2026 season would be its last.
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SPEAKER_00: It had weathered the Civil War,
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SPEAKER_00: two world wars,
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SPEAKER_00: the Great Depression,
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SPEAKER_00: radio, television, industrial agriculture, the internet, and smartphones.
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SPEAKER_00: Once distributed by the millions,
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SPEAKER_00: the familiar yellow book was also handed out by businesses as a promotional item.
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SPEAKER_00: Almanac aficionados couldn't bear the news that the book was ceasing publication,
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SPEAKER_00: so it was recently announced that a new publisher had purchased the publication and
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SPEAKER_00: that they will indeed keep going.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank heavens.
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SPEAKER_00: Our farm, Lavender Hill, was born between the launches of both of these books.
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SPEAKER_00: For as much as I like writing,
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SPEAKER_00: I I notoriously suck at keeping accurate and detailed records of my plans,
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SPEAKER_00: plantings, and harvest.
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SPEAKER_00: I vow to get better at this.
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SPEAKER_00: And there is no better time to map out the coming seasons with all the plans we have
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SPEAKER_00: in store for this place,
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SPEAKER_00: both including and separate from the horses,
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SPEAKER_00: than as the grass begins to slow its growth and the vines wind down into the autumn,
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SPEAKER_00: What am I going to do if I can't spend every spare hour mowing grass?
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SPEAKER_00: This is what I've learned during four complete seasons at Lavender Hill
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SPEAKER_00: and what I hope to accomplish in the coming months.
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SPEAKER_00: A collection of hard-earned personal wisdom and attention to the moon cycles.
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SPEAKER_00: As I map out my personal almanac, I invite you to do the same.
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SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to get trapped in the past that we stop noticing the promise of future harvests.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's say goodbye to our old cycles, stories, and relationships once and for all.
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SPEAKER_00: What's done is done.
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SPEAKER_00: We have work to do.
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SPEAKER_00: My problem isn't actually grass.
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SPEAKER_00: It runs deeper than this.
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SPEAKER_00: My problem is that I found a socially acceptable way to spend three hours alone
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SPEAKER_00: While accomplishing something visible while mowing the grass.
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SPEAKER_00: The time spent on the tractor allows me to operate machinery and think my thoughts
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SPEAKER_00: while making the world look better behind me.
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SPEAKER_00: Knowing that cooler weather is incoming and the growing will slow is threatening my supply.
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SPEAKER_00: As I map out the coming months, I'm working to create a four season tractor avoidance program.
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SPEAKER_00: I refuse to accept that winter means that I have to come inside and develop indoor hobbies.
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SPEAKER_00: There are nearly 30 acres outside my door,
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SPEAKER_00: a tractor,
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SPEAKER_00: a zero turn,
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SPEAKER_00: a ridiculous number of battery-powered hand tools,
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SPEAKER_00: a whole bunch of trees that continuously shed their branches,
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SPEAKER_00: and at least one piece of equipment I haven't told Christopher that we need yet.
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SPEAKER_00: Surely this land will show me what to do.
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SPEAKER_00: So in the spirit of all the Almanac writers who came before me,
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SPEAKER_00: I will study the weather and consult the moon.
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SPEAKER_00: I am currently eyeing the agricultural calendars and staring anxiously at the grass.
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SPEAKER_00: Here is my plan for the next four seasons.
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SPEAKER_00: I know I said I wasn't going to talk about where
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SPEAKER_00: I was a year ago,
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SPEAKER_00: But I'm trying to keep track of what the seasons were doing
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SPEAKER_00: when we plucked everything up at the old farm and placed it down in the warm dirt of
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SPEAKER_00: the new farm last late September.
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SPEAKER_00: I remember that when we arrived, the mornings were cool, but the day hours were warm.
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SPEAKER_00: I remember how the dew and the grass felt the morning the horses were stepping onto
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SPEAKER_00: the trailer, how it soaked my socks through my boots.
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SPEAKER_00: I remember how my feet were wrinkled from the wet after walking the paths from
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SPEAKER_00: the field to the barn over and over as the horses arrived.
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SPEAKER_00: For the rest of my life, wet boots will feel like the grief of losing Sheba.
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SPEAKER_00: There was so much grass in the fields,
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SPEAKER_00: the stems tall because I had asked the seller not to mow before she left.
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SPEAKER_00: I wanted the horses to have as much green as they could stuff
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SPEAKER_00: into their perfect mouths before winter came along.
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SPEAKER_00: Forecasting the same season coming,
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SPEAKER_00: I know that here in the upstate of South Carolina,
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SPEAKER_00: my mowing will not abruptly stop when fall descends in earnest.
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SPEAKER_00: The warm season growth will slow,
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SPEAKER_00: but lower temperatures are ideal for cool season grasses like fescue
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SPEAKER_00: and orchard grass.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm having carpal tunnel surgery on both hands simultaneously in early October.
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SPEAKER_00: In retrospect,
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SPEAKER_00: I should have planned it for January,
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SPEAKER_00: but I'm bargaining having met my health insurance deductible with the hands-on work
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SPEAKER_00: of the barn beginning to slow down.
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SPEAKER_00: All in all, it will be nice to finally feel my fingertips again.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't need feeling in my fingers to mow nor usable palms.
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SPEAKER_00: The doctor said his own father was using a hammer on his dock a few days after surgery.
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SPEAKER_00: He also said that he wouldn't recommend this,
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SPEAKER_00: but once my knuckles are able to curl again, I'm in business.
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SPEAKER_00: As fall settles into place,
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SPEAKER_00: I'll still be mowing around the house and barn,
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SPEAKER_00: the pond edge, and lanes throughout October.
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SPEAKER_00: Weeds don't always get the memo that it's time to go to ground as the days become colder.
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SPEAKER_00: But the fields are their own creatures.
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SPEAKER_00: And this fall, I'm adding lime to correct the soil pH and planting winter ryegrass.
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SPEAKER_00: Ryegrass serves two purposes.
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SPEAKER_00: First, it assists my emotional dependence on mowing.
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SPEAKER_00: Second,
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SPEAKER_00: I want the horses to spend the winter eating food that grows from the ground instead
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SPEAKER_00: of watching our haybill climb like the national debt.
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SPEAKER_00: Before all that,
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SPEAKER_00: in late September,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm further dividing the fields to implement additional mob and rotational grazing.
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SPEAKER_00: The initial experiment in the girls' field has been a smashing success in the warm season.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll mow the new section short so I can broadcast the ryegrass seed.
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SPEAKER_00: It's an annual plant that sprouts quickly and is easy to converse with
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SPEAKER_00: I'd call ryegrass a cheap date,
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SPEAKER_00: but the 50-pound bags of seed I haul home this fall began their journeys long
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SPEAKER_00: before I decided to plant them.
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SPEAKER_00: Most of the grass seed that we scatter in our lawns and fields is grown in Oregon,
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SPEAKER_00: where drought and fewer planted acres have tightened the harvest
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SPEAKER_00: and fertilizer prices have skyrocketed.
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SPEAKER_00: As seed makes its way to us,
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SPEAKER_00: it gets tangled up in the cattle markets and the value of the American dollar
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SPEAKER_00: And whatever we've decided to do with tariffs and international trade this week.
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SPEAKER_00: All of this informs what happens after the seed travels across the country and
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SPEAKER_00: then lands in the hands of my supplier.
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SPEAKER_00: Who also deals our hay and knows exactly how much I'm going to need and
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SPEAKER_00: when I'm going to need it.
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SPEAKER_00: I send a text.
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SPEAKER_00: He gives me a number.
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SPEAKER_00: We arrange a place and time.
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SPEAKER_00: Christopher carries the cash to a drop-off point.
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SPEAKER_00: Nobody asks too many questions.
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SPEAKER_00: This brings me back to mowing.
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SPEAKER_00: If all goes well,
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SPEAKER_00: I'll have actual green winter grass to mow when everything else has turned brown.
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SPEAKER_00: I won't be mowing the grazing areas for entertainment,
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SPEAKER_00: of course,
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SPEAKER_00: but who's to say what will need mowing
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SPEAKER_00: if I accidentally spill some ryegrass around key non-grazing corridors?
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SPEAKER_00: Like beside the driveway, for instance.
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SPEAKER_00: Or around the barn.
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SPEAKER_00: Or a walking lane.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, something to scratch the itch.
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SPEAKER_00: Two.
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SPEAKER_00: The winter of my discontent.
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SPEAKER_00: December through February.
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SPEAKER_00: I have a used zero-turn mower and acres of trees.
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SPEAKER_00: I will not run out of leaves.
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SPEAKER_00: Winter is when the mower becomes a blender.
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SPEAKER_00: I will mulch the leaves.
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SPEAKER_00: I will chop them.
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SPEAKER_00: I will blow them away from the fences.
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SPEAKER_00: I will mow them into spaces where they can feed the ground and create an abundance
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SPEAKER_00: of protected spaces for fireflies to nest.
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SPEAKER_00: I will clear the driveways.
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SPEAKER_00: I will keep the entrance to the barn neat.
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SPEAKER_00: There is something deeply satisfying about the possibility
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SPEAKER_00: of turning chaotic fallen leaves into stripes of compost.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the same dopamine hit I get from mowing grass, just a different substrate.
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SPEAKER_00: This is where less cleanup deeply improves the soil.
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SPEAKER_00: Instead of removing fallen leaves,
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SPEAKER_00: mowing them into finer particles that disappear into the grass makes them food for
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SPEAKER_00: the system.
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SPEAKER_00: When you mow over dry leaves,
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SPEAKER_00: they're chopped into pieces that disappear between the blades of grass.
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SPEAKER_00: All the fungi,
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SPEAKER_00: bacteria,
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SPEAKER_00: earthworms,
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SPEAKER_00: and other decomposers are at the ready to transform that material
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SPEAKER_00: into composted gold.
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SPEAKER_00: As the leaf fragments decompose,
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SPEAKER_00: nitrogen,
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SPEAKER_00: calcium,
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SPEAKER_00: potassium,
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SPEAKER_00: and other micronutrients are recycled back into the soil
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SPEAKER_00: Where plants can eventually use them again.
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SPEAKER_00: The carbon rich nutrients become food for soil organisms
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SPEAKER_00: and contribute organic matter to the upper soil.
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SPEAKER_00: This process returns nutrients the trees have borrowed from the soil
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SPEAKER_00: during their seasons of growth.
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SPEAKER_00: The trees have pulled resources from the ground,
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SPEAKER_00: built leaves, dropped the leaves in the fall, and decomposition completes the cycle.
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SPEAKER_00: An added benefit of the mower chopped leaves is that when they're breaking down,
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SPEAKER_00: the thin layer of organic material helps moderate soil temperature,
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SPEAKER_00: retain moisture, and support soil structure and biological activity.
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SPEAKER_00: Summer's growth falls from the trees,
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SPEAKER_00: and my new job is to return what was produced back into the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: This is regenerative agriculture.
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SPEAKER_00: If you don't look too closely at the fact that I'm mostly doing it
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SPEAKER_00: because I like driving around in circles.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not avoiding winter.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm building soil and protecting fireflies.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm feeding earthworms.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm an important part of the nutrient cycle.
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SPEAKER_00: Please do not take this away from me.
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SPEAKER_00: Each week I take paid subscribers behind the scenes and deeper into the world of the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: These are the visual field notes that can't fit on the page.
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SPEAKER_00: Come wander around with me behind the fences.
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SPEAKER_00: You can find the link in the original essay and each week there'll be
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SPEAKER_00: a new little treat that I leave for all of my paid subscribers.
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SPEAKER_00: I thank you so very much for keeping this place going.
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SPEAKER_00: And for contributing to the life of this land and to all of the horses and humans
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SPEAKER_00: that find a home here.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for walking the path beside me.
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SPEAKER_00: Three.
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SPEAKER_00: When I run out of things to mow.
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SPEAKER_00: January through February.
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SPEAKER_00: Eventually I will run out of leaves to mow and the winter ryegrass will begin to dwindle.
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SPEAKER_00: At this point,
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SPEAKER_00: I will expand my concept of mowing to include the complex
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SPEAKER_00: and deeply respectable practice of land grooming.
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SPEAKER_00: This is auspicious because the tractor and mower can take a breather
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SPEAKER_00: while I also have many things I can possibly do.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm still not ready to cultivate indoor hobbies.
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SPEAKER_00: Winter is when the farm loses all its camouflage.
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SPEAKER_00: The grasses lie down and the weeds disappear.
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SPEAKER_00: All the fallen leaves have been mulched into the soil and with them off
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SPEAKER_00: the trees I can see through to places that have been green walls most of the year.
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SPEAKER_00: I can see the fence lines free of vines and my attention isn't consumed
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SPEAKER_00: with keeping their lower wires free of obstacles that will ground the electric out.
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SPEAKER_00: I won't be attacked by the new offshoots of the blackberry brambles and
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SPEAKER_00: a ginormous crown of Jesus thorns on the prolific ancient trifoliate orange shrubs
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SPEAKER_00: that line the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: I can see the spots where the water gathers around the springs.
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SPEAKER_00: I will be occupied,
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SPEAKER_00: hopefully,
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SPEAKER_00: with tasks that I can do with my noise-canceling headphones and zero questions
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SPEAKER_00: from humans.
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SPEAKER_00: I will make permanent paths through the forest.
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SPEAKER_00: I will clear the cemetery even if there is no gate around the old spiked iron fence
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SPEAKER_00: and part of me thinks the spirits have been contained there on purpose.
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SPEAKER_00: I will prune the persimmons and fig trees.
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SPEAKER_00: I will get to know all the parts of the farm I have lived beside for a year
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SPEAKER_00: without truly making a deep acquaintance.
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SPEAKER_00: Hello, I am Kim.
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SPEAKER_00: It's good to meet you.
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SPEAKER_00: How can I show up for you today?
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SPEAKER_00: I'll say this in my head because my earbuds are drowning out all the sound.
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SPEAKER_00: This is also the season where I can learn where things ought to be.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll place another path in this spot and I'll learn to utilize the woods beyond the pond.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll figure out where the orchard should be expanded and where a bridle path through
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SPEAKER_00: the woods can connect one place to another instead of ending abruptly
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SPEAKER_00: in another blackberry thicket because I became distracted.
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SPEAKER_00: This work of winter,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm beginning to understand, is about becoming intimate with the bones of the land.
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SPEAKER_00: All of this sounds peaceful and contemplative until you realize I'll be doing most
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SPEAKER_00: of this from the back of a diesel tractor.
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SPEAKER_00: I have expanded the four-season tractor avoidance program to include attachments.
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SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to the wood chipper.
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SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I needed one until I had the tree company that cleared up
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SPEAKER_00: the fallen water oaks leave all their evidence in a pile for me
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SPEAKER_00: to use beneath new plantings and boggy paths.
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SPEAKER_00: Specifically, I need a chipper that attaches to the tractor's PTO.
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SPEAKER_00: I sent a desperate SOS to the Facebook Marketplace guy about a standalone unit,
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SPEAKER_00: and he responded that he rarely comes across one.
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SPEAKER_00: Consider the possibilities.
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SPEAKER_00: Every trail I clear produces limbs.
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SPEAKER_00: Every tree I prune produces branches.
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SPEAKER_00: I have piles of fallen limbs strategically placed around the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: The storm winds have been mighty this summer.
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SPEAKER_00: I made these piles under the assumption that future me would eventually develop
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SPEAKER_00: a plan for them.
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SPEAKER_00: Future me has arrived,
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SPEAKER_00: along with the OCD barn manager who understands that she can safely create
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SPEAKER_00: a small burn pile if she can convince Christopher to move the fire pit we inherited
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SPEAKER_00: in the backyard 30 feet so it's not under a dense canopy of living tree branches.
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SPEAKER_00: I can feed all this fallen debris into a machine that will transform it into
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SPEAKER_00: an unwieldy pile of wood chips, which will then be returned to the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: The chips can cover walking paths,
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SPEAKER_00: suppress weeds around established trees and shrubs,
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SPEAKER_00: all while holding moisture in the soil and eventually breaking it down
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SPEAKER_00: into nutrient dense compost.
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SPEAKER_00: Listen, nothing leaves the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: This is what I love.
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SPEAKER_00: A branch falls.
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SPEAKER_00: I pick it up and feed it into an extremely loud machine powered by my tractor.
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SPEAKER_00: The machine violently renders it into a bunch of tiny pieces.
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SPEAKER_00: I spread those pieces beneath another tree where fungi and insects begin
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SPEAKER_00: the much slower work of turning it back into soil.
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SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is practically spiritual.
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SPEAKER_00: This is how my equipment purchases happen.
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SPEAKER_00: I begin by wanting to know the land more intimately,
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SPEAKER_00: and several paragraphs later,
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SPEAKER_00: I've developed an ecological reason for owning a wood chipper.
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SPEAKER_00: This is also how humans have justified doing considerably worse to the land.
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SPEAKER_00: We decide what we want from a place, and then we develop a noble reason for taking it.
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SPEAKER_00: We straighten rivers,
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SPEAKER_00: drain wetlands, and then we congratulate ourselves on making the land more useful.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna spend the winter thinking about this too,
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SPEAKER_00: how our need for control gets dressed up in an outfit of caring.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a tight dress that makes it impossible to breathe.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: I'll contemplate this while feeding branches into my new chipper.
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SPEAKER_00: Four, the grass rises again, March through May.
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SPEAKER_00: I will pretend that I'm waiting for spring because I'm deeply attuned to the rhythms
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SPEAKER_00: of the natural world.
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SPEAKER_00: My weekly writing and all the ad copy for the farm will reflect my deep bow to
22:46
SPEAKER_00: the coming of the new season.
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SPEAKER_00: What I'm actually waiting for is the grass to grow tall enough to justify starting the mower.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: With my eyes accustomed to the browns and grays of winter,
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SPEAKER_00: I rise one morning and look out through the bare bones of the trees and I'll begin
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SPEAKER_00: to notice an almost imperceptible haze of green.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll see a spot on the path from the house to the barn where
23:14
SPEAKER_00: the new grass is slightly taller than it was the day before.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: And then the mower engine will sputter into life.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm back in business.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I can quit anytime I like.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And also, of course, I am not a quitter.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: The entire household and most of the barn staff will breathe a sigh of relief
23:37
SPEAKER_00: because I'm easier to be around.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: They'll hear the mower running in the distance and nod thankfully to the sky.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: I will mow and I will seed and I will spread compost over the ground in
23:51
SPEAKER_00: a steaming trail of nutrients.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: The mornings will still be cool in these early spring months.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Having now lived four seasons at this new farm,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: I know that the mower will show me where to look.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Moving slowly across the same ground week after week,
24:10
SPEAKER_00: I see things I would have missed if I were just walking toward a destination.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: From the seat of the mower,
24:16
SPEAKER_00: I notice where the grass changes color and where the ground stays wet long after
24:22
SPEAKER_00: the rain has dried.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: I find depressions and old paths and plants growing in the most unexpected places.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: I see holes before a horse steps in them and fence posts beginning to lean
24:35
SPEAKER_00: before they've tipped over and created a hazard.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: On the mower,
24:40
SPEAKER_00: I have found fruit trees I didn't know we had and springs that I'd mistaken for
24:45
SPEAKER_00: a ditch.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I've become acquainted with the ground cover at the edge of the fields,
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Learning the names of things that grow in the shade of the trees.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I've learned where the fireflies gather and which parts of the land stays cool and
25:01
SPEAKER_00: which spots the ground bakes in the sunlight.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: On the back of the mower this year, the farm has stopped being anonymous to me.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference between owning land and knowing the land.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Knowing requires a clear mind and the time to see things.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: For me, this also requires a wide mowing deck and noise-canceling headphones.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: There are worse spiritual practices.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Field Notes
25:41
SPEAKER_00: 27 years ago, I quit all my real jobs to write a book.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: I bought a brand new laptop and I climbed the steps to the office in the hayloft of
25:53
SPEAKER_00: the barn that hatched Bramblewood.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I had every intention of doing the horse gig on the side as I immersed myself in
26:01
SPEAKER_00: the serious business of becoming a writer.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: However, farms are incredibly practical for writers who do not want to write.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: There is always a bucket to clean or a manure to pick.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I could always invent a thousand jobs after finishing morning chores.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I became exceptionally productive at so many things,
26:25
SPEAKER_00: except for the job I had quit my real jobs to accomplish.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Barns always have jobs.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: This is one of their greatest gifts and also one of their biggest dangers.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: A farm won't tell you when you're finished for the day.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: A farm will happily accept every hour you're willing to give it
26:47
SPEAKER_00: and have another task waiting when you're done.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: There is no bottom of the list.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Back then, I thought I was procrastinating.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I was.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: But looking back, it feels like the barn was teaching me how to write.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: I've never been good at sitting still and waiting for thoughts to arrive.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: I need to move around ideas or carry something or fix something or drive around
27:19
SPEAKER_00: in enormous circles while the idea works itself loose.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Some of the best sentences I've written have happened
27:26
SPEAKER_00: when my numb hands were occupied with anything else except writing.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Once upon a time, I climbed down from a loft to avoid writing a book.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Now I climb on top of a mower.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I'm just obsessed with mowing grass,
27:46
SPEAKER_00: but I'm hungry for giving my body a job so that my mind can wander off without me.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: As I mow grass, there is enough noise that nobody tries to talk to me.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: My body is concentrated on running the machine so I can't pick up my phone.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: I move slowly through the landscape on the back of the mower and the repetition of
28:08
SPEAKER_00: the actions keeps my thoughts from trying to be too useful.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of this, something will start to appear.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: I might find a sentence or a memory.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I'll make a connection between a seed of ryegrass on the ground in South Carolina
28:26
SPEAKER_00: and trace it back to a farmer in Oregon.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I will notice how the leaves underneath the mower blades are part of a cycle
28:35
SPEAKER_00: that works best without human interference.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: I'll understand that my desire to improve the land isn't separate from my desire to control it.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: I started writing this week because I was beginning to panic
28:51
SPEAKER_00: about not having anything to mow in the winter.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: I have now developed a plan that includes seeding and composting,
28:59
SPEAKER_00: forest paths, fruit trees, soil biology, and a PTO chipper.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: I think I'll be okay.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: An almanac is a field guide for paying attention to the seasons.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: 27 years ago, I thought I was avoiding doing the gradual, grueling work of writing.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: As it turns out, I was just taking notes.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim