A dedication to Tara Brenner.
Farm News...what's the Farm News?
The rye is harvested and in the bin.
The greenhouse is a weedy mess, but producing all sorts of hidden goodness.
The elderberry bushes are busting with fruit.
Branches on the plum tree risk breaking if I don't pick them.
Speaking of break, I kicked the bed this morning as I walked by and broke my pinky toe. This is the second time I've done this exact thing!
The raspberries are about ripen, and holy cats, will I be busy picking!
The sunflowers are past peak but still quite pretty for a few more days.
William's cousin's wife, Tara Brenner, passed away on August 17th from cancer. She and Eric were one of the most amazing couples I have ever known. Tara had an infectious kindness that caused everyone who met her to pull into her sphere. This is a sad loss for the Brenner family.
Today, this moment in history is full of every morsel of life - its bounty and its cruelty. I'm not sure if the idea that "everything happens for a reason" is the case at all, but life, when it delivers in all of it's nuanced ways, demands we take note, feel it, allow it to carry and pass through us. From the perspective of the farm, when modern conveniences are out of the equation, one quickly recognizes that what sustains us is ephemeral in nature. That weighed down bough of plums is today's gift for me, the birds and the soil. We each share our nourishment with each other and the earth, and like a fleeting harvest of raspberries, we are gone. What earth offers in abundance must also depart, and ultimately, return to the soil.
Here's a little Wendell Berry wisdom to support my noticings: “The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
I guess the news from the farm is that old cliche, love hard, appreciate it all and take nothing for granted. And, know that love and abundance will always return, hard as that is to see at times.
The FARM STORE has some new products: PLUM JAM and ELDERBERRY TONIC
There are also soups galore these days: Chili con Carne, Beef Stew, Chicken with Summer Veggie and Black Bean. Also back are my bread kits and Sour Dough Starter for you bread makers out there. Of course, there are cookies, too!
Sending love from the farm,
Sarah
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