Simon: Yeah, if I had to pick one aspect of small farming that’s absolutely different from…city life, it’d be facing a field full of hand work. There’s the incredible satisfaction of gambling with nature and watching things grow, and seeing what an effect your own timely or untimely intervention can have. And then there’s a lot of routine work that could seem incredibly tedious. After the initial year or two of microfarming novelty and “will this work” adrenaline wears off, it’s a steady process of letting the routine settle in along with all of the other new awarenesses. There are definitely tough, daunting days, but you can feel a new, uh, consciousness coming through. When I do stuff with Bob, who’s farmed for decades, the feeling is clear. I’d say it’s maybe what most defines farmers trained from childhood, the kind of attitude toward getting jobs done. It’s not “factory work”, you feel your little efforts are directly part of a Big Picture, like, the whole planet!! There’s deep, quiet, ongoing satisfaction to be had from really “boring” looking repetitive tasks in and round the field…has to be tried, harder to learn late—a cool state of mind! Hope I get all the way there! :)

-Simon.