The Beauty and the Fury

This year’s harvest has come and gone, and the chill of November winds is nipping at our backs and faces every day we work in the fields. Nature’s rhythm continually has me in awe - as we prepare to put the babes to sleep under their winter burlap, and wait until the sun warms the ground again, and they spring back into their full glory and start the cycle once more.

This year was an especially emotional one. The late summer winds and heat dealt a cruel blow to our area - igniting a fire so intense that many lost homes, livelihoods, and memories. Smoke so thick your eyes and throat burn just walking to your car. Ash falling silently around the farm, painfully thinking that this is what could be left of someone’s home, someone’s life, beautiful forest. We’ve experienced wildfires in our region, but the Oregon Road fire was too close - reaching us for level 3 evacuations. We were lucky, the amazing and heroic actions and dedication of the fire departments, DNR, and locals held it from progressing further south to us. And then came the rain. The beautiful, cool, saving rain from, ironically, a west coast hurricane.

I hadn’t realized how much we had emotionally invested in the farm until I drove away wondering if I would ever see it in bloom again - ever be able to walk the field in the summer air with the barn cats and the amazing fragrance, bees humming and doing their thing, and having everything right with the world. Like I said, we were lucky. My heart hurts for those who are starting over. I can’t imagine, and I pray that help comes before winter.

Be good to each other and sweet mother earth, she’s the only one we have.

And Happy Birthday baby girl.