The Fruits of Cultivation

It is already dusk. The fields glow with gleaning eggplants and squash, glistening hoophouses of transpiring tomatoes and peppers, and flowering wild mustard that flanks the rows of brassicas and lettuce. Invisible crickets have started chirping in the purpling expanse. I no longer feel the lasting marks of the scraping soil on bare knees or the straining stretch of planting a bed’s third row or the blistering of a hoe—I only feel the roughness of fingertips and palms itching bugbites or massaging overworked muscles. I am callused already.

The romantic is not lost, but spring has passed. Summer bears fully developed life—wanted and unwanted—the fruition of reality. Now it is time to write.

Welcome to THE FARMBOOK—a blog cataloguing observations, reflections, interviews, and reviews of the fields, foods, and flavors that sustain us.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082736: "The Necessity of Agriculture," Wendell Berry