All too often we get stuck in understandably dealing with the immediacy of issues in farming. Broken equipment, weather events, pests, and more all occupy our day to day thoughts and tasks to the point that we forget to take time and look at the bigger picture, especially from a temporal context. If we approach farming only along two axes (X and Y) - height and width - but forget or ignore the Z axis (depth or time) then we place everything we do into a snapshot in time. Yes, this is critical, as we can't ignore the immediacy of damaging conditions - though there may not be much we can do about them, but ignoring them isn't an option. But we should also be thinking about what we can do in time to reduce the potential these problems arise again - in severity or at all. This requires us to think in temporal terms. Solutions sometimes require longer-term focus, shifts in consciousness, diligence and patience that we don't always have when we are dealing with what's in front of us on a daily basis.
This idea of Shifting Consciousness and Farming Along the Z-Axis in how we approach orcharding is something I will touch on over the next few months. It is often said in biodynamics that spring and summer are when we do the "outer work" and winter is when we do out "inner work." In other words, we make hay while the sun shines during the summer, and we think deeply about our work and contemplate continual improvement and betterment of the world around us during the winter. I've said for years that I start thinking about next year at the mid-point of the current growing season. Not as a distraction, but to contemplate what's happening this year in comparison to what happened last year, and ponder what next year might be like and how do we adapt. This approach opens up possibilities that might be forgotten in time or where the seriousness of issues dissipate. It allows for ideas to ferment and come into full light and fruition by the time the next year rolls around. For me there is no time like now to put what we've learned this year and fermenting ideas for applicable actions for next year.
Mike Biltonen
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