Life on the farm has always presented a comforting predictability. A seasonality of changes: winter’s arrival of lambs, marketing of the hogs come spring and fall, the early spring budding of fruits and vines, planting of the first cabbage beginning in late February or early March.
We have built our farming practices around that predictability, erring on the side of caution as suits the natural conservatism of the farmer. We know that September and October are the driest months and that lime can then be spread safely on our hills, and we act accordingly. We have learned to carry over enough hay from the previous year to bed the animals during the cold months. We reserve stores of firewood; we leave pastures fallow. We plan two timetables for the garden starts just in case one planting is lost to weather, disease, or pests. Virtually every decision we make is based on the recurrent rhythms that vary year to year, though always within a framework that is understood.
But now come the unpredictable droughts and deluges. The earth is changing right before our eyes, and we can no longer count on a time to every purpose. The changes cannot be ignored, yet there is only so much adaptability we can accommodate. True, as a small farm we’re able to shift course more easily, even as the smaller boat turns quicker on its keel than the barge. But in times of extreme and erratic turbulence, a different direction does not guarantee entry into a safe harbor. The history of our species teaches us that lesson, and the older geological record hammers the message home with humility.
Friends and family express amazement at our farm’s independence and productivity. Indeed, we do produce all of our meat, most of our vegetables, some of our fruit, and we’ve done so for nearly two decades. Yet this small diverse farm, like everything else on earth, is tied into a vast web of interlocking connections of history, climate, culture, politics, supply chains, and industrial growth. It is impossible to be otherwise. Each external connection impacts our decisions and limits us in ways we only pretend to fathom. Our independence and security are as illusory and elusive as a foothold in the barnyard slurry.
As a farmer, I tend to think in terms of fragility. The newborn lamb, chick, piglet, all need nourishment, water, and warmth to survive and grow. Those are the universal requirements of life. Remove one of the three and fragility is introduced into the equation: death becomes the inevitable outcome. A few days past, I entered the barn only to find a dead lamb, a two-week-old lamb that only half an hour earlier seemed to be flourishing, now unexplainably lifeless, now food for carrion. Fragility.
It is what that word “fragility” represents that most scares me, keeps me awake at night. Its implications ripple out and shake history, culture, and that larger unknown, our sheltering climate (which more and more seems to have been just a window in time). They augur an ocean, churning up waves that threaten to toss us off our little moored raft, into heaving waters, treading until we can tread no more.
No doubt you’ve heard the term Garden Earth, referring to the relative steady-state climate of the past 10 to 12 thousand years. We’re now exiting that steady state, going on to Hothouse Earth in an exceptionally rapid phase shift. Do I also detect a sense that the churn of change (this time) is really more about loss? That’s certainly how I see things these days.
If the last few thousand years are called Garden Earth I’d wager that this is a catastrophic misnomer. We have not recently turned a Garden into a Hothouse after a long time of tending it well: We’re finishing off what our ancestors began 50.000 years ago, one extinct megaherbivore, one extra grain crop, one expanding desert at a time:
https://twitter.com/DRMegafauna/status/1088716741700710401
And I’d go so far as to say that we have easier paths to reintroducing resilience into terrestrial landscapes than ever before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=123y7jDdbfY (skip the intro)
Michael,
Alas, where I live I do not have the digital access to watch more than a couple of minute video. I agree with your first statement. But, I’m not sure if we have truly have the skills to achieve that long-term resilience implied in the second. But, I will try and certainly applaud any efforts to not go quietly into the night.
Next time you get near an unlimited pleasure radio frequency tower (or are expecting guests with electro-skills), do download it and take it home. I think it’s worth it, because basic skills and opportunities for everybody is what it is about.
Indeed. Also, just a note that any smugness at what we have accomplished should be tempered by the connections to a larger world. And, the whole ball of wax is so interwoven that we delude ourselves in thinking we can out plan the planetary biome.
Brian,
Being a small business owner I understand both the independence and the insecurity. One spring just a few weeks before my business opened as usual in April I fell and broke by ankle. I had stepped out on the deck in my slippers (damn the irony) to check on something so unimportant I don’t even remember what it was. I do remember my foot twisting under me and hearing a sickening cracking sound. I couldn’t drive or operate equipment for 2 months. The only fortunate thing is that my husband’s paycheck still supported us so I didn’t have to worry about paying bills. But it was a tough spring for me in my business. It’s hard to find and pay for good labor. And it really made me mad that it was due to my own carelessness! Now every time I climb up into my front end loader I think about what would happen if I fell from that height. I hang on extra tight and try never to be careless, but we never really know what life will bring us. No wonder people learned to pray!
Yes, our climate is becoming chaotic and any profession that relies on a stable climate is going to suffer. As if farming wasn’t insecure enough! Did you figure out why the lamb died?
Yes, fragile describes our lives and it is frightening. I’m not sure our species will survive but if we do, it will be because as individuals we are capable of stepping beyond self. I am sorry about the lamb. Did you find out what happened? I hope the rest remain healthy.
Linda and Jody,
Regarding the lamb: we didn’t. This was a large ram lamb, growing very fast and active, an unlikely candidate for the type of lamb mortalities that inevitably occur with sheep. There may have been an underlying internal issue dating from birth that we couldn’t observe. It happens. But, it always both sad and a reminder of the tenuous hold any of us have on this life.
Cheers,
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Brian,
Your post was timely, putting into words something I find myself experiencing these days: a lack of confidence that our modest efforts to produce food will continue to be fairly successful. When ordering a few packets of seeds a few weeks ago, I noticed an underlying thought that weather conditions could well lead to poor or no harvest this year. In previous years when I ordered seeds it was with a fair amount of confidence that the garden would do well enough. Yes, weather was always a factor, and some things might do better than others, but I didn’t have the feeling of fragility that I do now. I’m almost afraid to say it because it is difficult to admit and face the impact of the changing climate on the relative security we currently enjoy.
I have always been aware of the external factors that enable us to live here, and there are plenty of worries in that realm. But the changing climate and real possibility of food shortages creates a more primal fear in me. It is humbling to say the least. Especially knowing how fortunate I have been, that food security is relatively new for humans in general and only enjoyed by a minority on the planet even now.
Thanks, Sarah. Like you, I’ve been humbled to know that fortune I’ve experienced. Do stay warm today. I’d be afraid to ask your high temp for the afternoon.
My best,
Hi Brian. It’s -25F this morning with wind chill around -50. High -11 today, with clear blue skies & sunshine. The crazy-making thing is that it’s going to be in the 40s this weekend, then trending back to our “new normal” January temps well above zero. When I was a kid (in the ’60s and early ’70s) it wasn’t that unusual for our area to hit -20 (or colder) or so at least once in a winter, and life mostly went on as usual though with extra care. Not so any more. Things are pretty much shut down here today, even mail delivery. I’d have to do more research than I have time for, but from a quick search it looks like it has been at least 10 years since we hit 20 below. So people aren’t used to it any more, and young ones have never experienced it. Because we are warm and not needing to go anywhere, and don’t have livestock at risk, I’m enjoying the weather. I would be miserable with the rain and mud you have been experiencing. Sorry to hear about that continuing situation. Take care.
Bingo! We were discussing the very same thing the other day. I spent a week in Minnesota during an outbreak around 2000. The high was on the day I arrived, minus 3. For five days the temp never got over -5, and as low as -27 at night. Nothing stopped, people went out shopping, schools were open, restaurants were packed. And, what I most remember were the men coming into the bar after a day ice fishing (although I was told they had shacks with heat out on the ice). I get that it is bitter cold and am glad to not be in the thick of it. But….