Today is a quiet day where I try to calm myself before the National Heirloom Expo begins. The expo team is surprised by this, thinking that I would be a ease as a public speaker, but instead it is a challenge. Like so many other things related to my farming, it hasn’t come easily. But it is the work that inspires me, and to be able to summarize that work, is at times quite difficult. Each year farming feels like three, or even seven, like dog years. Each day is filled to overflowing with life, and death, success and failures. Lessons learned. The printed words on the side of a bottle of kombucha tell me to “be present, be at peace; and you are what you believe-E.D.” It seems a far cry from my current situation. Facing the lovingly made presentation slides of life lessons that must be edited out of the Powerpoints. There is just too much. So my fingertip eases over to the delete key and it is gone. One less page.

Our view of farming is much like our view of an ice burg. We think we know it, but the foundation is vast and out of sight. How to you inspire without overwhelming? How to you ground us in reality without discouraging? How do you fill another with inspiration even though you are so tired you want to sleep in the corner? It is simple passion for life. It is hard to teach, and harder to reach, but once it is in your grasp, you will feel like the world is yours. So I make myself a smoothie of every green thing that I can find in home and garden, throw it back, and try to live up to the words on the bottle: be present. Be at peace. You are what you believe. I believe in possibility, and a whole lot of peace comes from that optimism.