"Formula"
There is something vulnerable about being in the midst of a process. Things don’t happen over night. Beginners, by our nature, make more mistakes and we are learning as we go.
We are trying to undo decades of soil compaction. Livestock in a small area can make dirt harder than concrete. It suffocates the life below. There is neither room for roots nor the myriad of micro-organisms that make life possible. Mechanical tillage can only take you so far before the harm outweighs the benefit. As it turns out – creating the right depth isn’t easy.
There are signs of progress, life is returning to previously solid patches of paddock and pasture. Bugs, weeds, and even small mammals are tunneling through areas on the property that were once unpassable. Life is recolonizing a space that had been forbidden for so many years but, amidst this progress, there is a price to pay. Our advances have been scarred from a long history. Some areas flourish, but there is no mistaking the patchwork of lifelessness interspersed throughout the farm.
This pattern plays out over the full four acres, but to recognize what is happening depends on our own willingness to see. The individual parts constitute the whole; the successes and the failures aren’t necessarily opposites. Honest evaluation cuts both ways and both achievement and inadequacy walk hand in hand. On this space we strive for a little piece of perfection, but this early on everything is far from it. Although I know how far we’ve come, it is more clear now than ever that this will not be a short journey. The only way forward is to recognize in full consideration the totality of where we are and the ever-growing list of things to be done.
We strive, we fail, we adapt and change. Then we strive again. Discomfort is no place to take refuge, it is a reminder to continue forward and that where we are is not our final destination. I may wish to make it appear better, but what I need is to make it be better. Time plus vision and energy is the only formula that has ever worked.
We are trying to undo decades of soil compaction. Livestock in a small area can make dirt harder than concrete. It suffocates the life below. There is neither room for roots nor the myriad of micro-organisms that make life possible. Mechanical tillage can only take you so far before the harm outweighs the benefit. As it turns out – creating the right depth isn’t easy.
There are signs of progress, life is returning to previously solid patches of paddock and pasture. Bugs, weeds, and even small mammals are tunneling through areas on the property that were once unpassable. Life is recolonizing a space that had been forbidden for so many years but, amidst this progress, there is a price to pay. Our advances have been scarred from a long history. Some areas flourish, but there is no mistaking the patchwork of lifelessness interspersed throughout the farm.
This pattern plays out over the full four acres, but to recognize what is happening depends on our own willingness to see. The individual parts constitute the whole; the successes and the failures aren’t necessarily opposites. Honest evaluation cuts both ways and both achievement and inadequacy walk hand in hand. On this space we strive for a little piece of perfection, but this early on everything is far from it. Although I know how far we’ve come, it is more clear now than ever that this will not be a short journey. The only way forward is to recognize in full consideration the totality of where we are and the ever-growing list of things to be done.
We strive, we fail, we adapt and change. Then we strive again. Discomfort is no place to take refuge, it is a reminder to continue forward and that where we are is not our final destination. I may wish to make it appear better, but what I need is to make it be better. Time plus vision and energy is the only formula that has ever worked.