Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.   

     – Wendell Berry

This past week was full of work at the root layer, away from the tactics of day to day tending. We took walks. We made big posters of our observations. We studied beaver dams. We planted a tree. We consulted scientists. We thought bigger, deeper thoughts. We met smart and serious and wholehearted new colleagues. We asked better, more informed questions. We sought out farmers and poets as teachers.

Dear friends, in our buzzy noisy world, there never seems to be time to tend to our foundations, the layers that make everything else possible and worthy and strong.

There is always time. 

*** Quote from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front. Every time I read this poem, a new line leaps out to stop me in my tracks.