The service this morning at our Unitarian Church focused on the Jewish High Holidays. I was deeply moved by the correlations between the adoption of the Jewish New Year and my own thinking over agriculture. I also think of things that went into last season - the potatoes were a raging success as was the Hoop House-seeds I hope to plant in the big book. I have memories of things to leave the past - the onion rows swallowed by a sea of reed grass, fence rows with 6 'lambs quarter, and other things I hope to leave in the future. But most of all I was struck by how I think this season has changed with my growing ecological awareness.
Autumn was often seen as adopting the year-an abandonment, even death, to the liveliness of the summer. Outdoor activity had often escalated-this is my preferred camping season-the nights are fresh and bug free for glorious sleeping, the understory is open, dry and full of flavor, and the game is on the move. It's still all these things, but obviously the more I have learned to see the world, the more I think about the seasons, as they are meant to-cyclical.
Now falling leaves carpet the ground is also an invitation to me to compost my garden and spread compost for a final season patina overwinter in the soil. Where before there was death and decay, now there is abundance and "putting by" of root crops, and even awakening of life as vetch and rye shoots back by the end of the hot sun, it is a time of new beginnings as beds and fields are cleared out with the harvest to the sweet melodies of flitting finches in cupplants and raw pies under the oak-chip parts of my work.
Stretching for a longer harvest as my plantings have diversified has greatly increased my enjoyment of the seasons - Summer's peppers and sauces and now wonderfully enhanced by the early spring, with clear, sweet, the frost-kissed Spinach late spring novel statins and now I am impressed by the bounty of butter utility's October, acorns, carrots and kale. It is an abundant harvest with more to be planted by the Hoop House enters full circle with spinach and Mâche for the second winter walk. Stretch the harvest spreads the work and greatly enriches the enjoyment of the tasks. No energy is so complete as that which courses through my arms when I first spade in the ground in the first warm day of spring, no air so warm and moist as walking through the hoop house 75 degrees in January only to rejoice in The cold cold as I leave with his arms full of greens, not air, so bright and vibrant as in October as flocks gather. Spreading Harvest is to participate in the glory of Nature varied seasons and what they have always given. Turn left ... ... ride, always and forever.
While spring and summer seasons of food building, The autumn is the season of the earth. Gifts of the harvest in full, but now is the time it takes to return. As nature shows its leaves and stems folds her blanket and feed the soil, so we should give something back to what we have read it so free, so the cycle can begin again, enriched, for seasons to come.
Autumn was often seen as adopting the year-an abandonment, even death, to the liveliness of the summer. Outdoor activity had often escalated-this is my preferred camping season-the nights are fresh and bug free for glorious sleeping, the understory is open, dry and full of flavor, and the game is on the move. It's still all these things, but obviously the more I have learned to see the world, the more I think about the seasons, as they are meant to-cyclical.
Now falling leaves carpet the ground is also an invitation to me to compost my garden and spread compost for a final season patina overwinter in the soil. Where before there was death and decay, now there is abundance and "putting by" of root crops, and even awakening of life as vetch and rye shoots back by the end of the hot sun, it is a time of new beginnings as beds and fields are cleared out with the harvest to the sweet melodies of flitting finches in cupplants and raw pies under the oak-chip parts of my work.
Stretching for a longer harvest as my plantings have diversified has greatly increased my enjoyment of the seasons - Summer's peppers and sauces and now wonderfully enhanced by the early spring, with clear, sweet, the frost-kissed Spinach late spring novel statins and now I am impressed by the bounty of butter utility's October, acorns, carrots and kale. It is an abundant harvest with more to be planted by the Hoop House enters full circle with spinach and Mâche for the second winter walk. Stretch the harvest spreads the work and greatly enriches the enjoyment of the tasks. No energy is so complete as that which courses through my arms when I first spade in the ground in the first warm day of spring, no air so warm and moist as walking through the hoop house 75 degrees in January only to rejoice in The cold cold as I leave with his arms full of greens, not air, so bright and vibrant as in October as flocks gather. Spreading Harvest is to participate in the glory of Nature varied seasons and what they have always given. Turn left ... ... ride, always and forever.
While spring and summer seasons of food building, The autumn is the season of the earth. Gifts of the harvest in full, but now is the time it takes to return. As nature shows its leaves and stems folds her blanket and feed the soil, so we should give something back to what we have read it so free, so the cycle can begin again, enriched, for seasons to come.
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