09/01/2026
This week, I mean the last six endless days, have been tricky, sticky, and wicked hard. I felt I wanted to be the bee taking cover in a hydrangea. Lol. The issue was that three of the four pieces of equipment I use to process garlic up and clunked out. It was hard raining kaput.
First the air compressor, next the garlic peeler, then the dehydrator malfunctioned. The compressor was the easiest fix. The dehydrator is back up today (although I still need to test it), and the parts for the peeler arrive tomorrow.
This post, then, is about, well, a forced pause. About pausing. A break (in a linguistic paradox) in the processing garlic schedule to breathe. To research how electrons travel over copper wire 9 feet in length, or what 1/4 inch pneumatic hose rates for bursts of 125 psi, or how to use a multimeter. (A lot to learn there!)
And over the same six days Dolly Parton died. Tim Curry, too, and Yayoi Kusama, and yesterday, Wendell Berry. Humans I enjoyed and admired and in some way from an average-person distance loved.
But it was Wendell Berry that stopped me in my fix-it-everything-is-broken panic. Wendell Berry is a human I truly admired. He is one of the reasons I dug in on being a farmer and a poet. His work and his life, the same. (That so rarely happens.)
I read his poetry and essays when I feel the wheels have come off my little train brain. When I'm in danger of believing every day is not a curious and weird miracle. When I forget, because a machine broke and I'm struggling to remember I can fix things or that I am resourceful and lucky and have, most importantly, a community who will help.
Berry convinced me, utterly, as in a beautiful and rare absolute, that a walk in the woods is a good way to understand how unimportant you are. Trees are turning light into life after all. I'll read "The Mad Farmer" again, I'll check in with friends and neighbors again, I'll learn how to fix what is broken, again and again, and remember what to do when "despair for the world grows in me." I'll wake, and go to the garlic field, and rest in the rich marvel of soil. Or at least read Berry's poetry again.
RIP I miss you already
