The [Wo]Man Born to Farming

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The Wendell Berry poem, "The Man Born to Farming," says 

"He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn." 

I'm not sure I was actually born to farming or gardening, but every year about this time I forget about the unbearable heat and the worry about rain and the Bermuda grass and the sore knees and I am reborn to gardening. 

This year we were especially blessed when a new friend of ours who is a Brahma cattle farmer mucked out her barn. She had 30 years of wonderful compost to share. We got three loads of the black gold and spread it on our newly prepared beds.

We are ready to start seedlings, plant seeds, onion sets, and seed potatoes, and see them rise up again.

Judy Collins has a great line in her song, "Fallow Way": "The black earth dreams of violets." I hope on this cold and drizzly day that our manure enriched garden soil is dreaming of tomatoes and peppers and potatoes and onions and beans and sunflowers and squash and corn. Sweet dreams!


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