The Geometry of Farming

For anyone who has experienced the great outdoors for an extended period of time, the phenomenon of "obsession" is easily understood. It seems that when humans are removed from their creature comforts, their brains dial into some vein of thought or another and ponder it incessantly. Brent and I experienced this while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2008. It took the form of endlessly discussing every item in our packs- how much they weighed and how much they were worth to our journey. As we trudged along, we would constantly contemplate how we could re-distribute each tiny item to lessen our burdens. These thoughts consumed our every waking moment and dominated most of our conversations. We were obsessed.

Farmer Brent is experiencing this obsession all over again as he toils in the 90+ degree heat day after day, but this time it's not about the items on his back. This time it's about how to maximize every morsel of soil contained within the deer fence at the farm on Jimmy Daniel. His thoughts wander to it while he's mindlessly pulling weeds or slogging through the tedious task of harvesting okra. He formulates new brilliant arrangements of rows and paths, only to scrap those plans and start all over again in his head. The various permutations float about in his brain all day and then he floats his schemes past me in the evenings. He's even awakened in the middle of the night to flip on his bedside lamp and scrawl out a new brilliant idea on a scrap of paper. This obsession is different this time around though, because I don't spend all day in the thick of the outdoors with him, facing the same problems and frustrations as we did on the trail. I can't provide the same level of insight and empathy that I could back then. It seems his obsession with the geometry of our fields is coming to a close though, and he has settled on a set-up that will make the best use of our space and our tools, and most importantly, his time. This new arrangement will allow him to plant cover crops that will improve the soil so next year's harvest will be even more robust and consistent. It means pulling up some crops before we would like to, but in the end, it's what is best for the future of the farm.

And we like to think that what is best for the farm is best for the people with feed, which becomes more important to us every week as we get to know the folks who enjoy the fruits of our labor.