About this time, each spring, I get Wendell Berry’s collection of poems, Farming: A Handbook, from the bookshelf. It is dog-eared and bedraggled from its years of accompanying me to conferences, meetings, rallys and devotionals. I flip quickly through to page 60 and find “The Satisfactions of The Mad Farmer,” one of the many reflections on mad farming Berry has offered across the decades. Reading it is a liturgy of the season. It helps me revel in gratitude for the garden and anoints me again for the sacred role of gardener for the new day. I offer you excerpts from the poem with photos of the beauty of our garden:
Growing weather; enough rain;
the cow’s udder tight with milk;
the peach tree bent with its yield;
honey golden in the white comb;
the pastures deep in clover and grass,
enough and more than enough;
the ground, new worked, moist
and yielding underfoot, the feet
comfortable in it as roots;
the early garden: potatoes, onions,
peas, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots,
radishes, marking their straight rows
with green, before the trees are leafed;
raspberries ripe and heavy amid their foliage,
currants shining red in clusters amid their foliage,
strawberries red ripe with the white
flowers still on the vines—-
picked with dew on them, before breakfast;
What I know of spirit is astir
in the world. The god I have always expected
to appear at the woods’ edge, beckoning,
I have always expected to be
a great relisher of the world, its good
grown immortal his mind.
Wendell Berry. Farming: A Handbook.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1970 (page 60).
If you’re wondering why three pictures of cabbage? I decided this year is a sauerkraut year, so there’s lots. We haven’t made kraut for awhile. May this be an impressive year in your garden…in all our gardens. May the beauty surprise you. May the Great Relisher of the world appear when you least expect her. May you hear him beckoning at the wood’s edge or in the strawberry bed. JP
Your garden is amazing. Make kimchi from some of that cabbage!
Dear John Pitney….how I miss your presence! Surely love these posts and read them all. Was especially fond of this one, with your face bursting out with that gorgeous berry midway. Loving you both from afar and will get up to see you one of these days!! Until then, blessings on your lives….any babies yet?
Dear John,
Thanks for the Wendell Berry poems. Sorry we haven’t been in touch. I’m usually the communicator but I’ve had some health issues that have slowed me down.
Jerry’s garden seems to have been more beautiful than any previous year. All the roses look like cabbage roses even though they are not. The kale is abundant and our artichokes have produced a half dozen at a time, to name some standouts. Great picture of you and the strawberry. Fondest regards to you and Debbie
Jane Smith
Hey John,
One of my employees learned and played Blue Heron Fly on her ukelele for my birthday last week. You and your family sound better, but we all sang along. It was splendid.
Let’s get to the Mad Farmer part!
Thanks for all you do!
best to you and Debbie.
Oh my goodness, this makes me miss gardening…I have dreams of a few pots on our balcony and I was just looking up Berlin CSAs when I opened your email. You have always inspired me to grow more. Love you guys!