In the heart of winter, I trek across the snow to my tiny office. It’s warm inside, but it still takes my hands a few minutes to find their circulation once I arrive. There isn’t much to do in the fields, and the hoop houses are mostly tending themselves. It’s time for a different kind of farming, the kind that exists only in imagination. I open the seed catalogs. Looking at the neatly organized options, I can almost taste the many-months-distant harvest.

On the farm, all moments are one moment.

Among the pumpkins, monitoring their growth, I am also in my office looking at seed catalogs. I am pouring a package of seeds into my palm. I am preparing the earth for planting. I am tending the vines as they grow. I am harvesting, tilling, looking at seed catalogs again.

This is my favorite season for so many reasons. One of the strongest reasons, though, is that the Pumpkin Patch makes all those threads visible not only to me, but also to the people who visit. When you pick up a pumpkin, you’re holding time in your hands. When you look at it, you’re looking into the past while envisioning a future. And when you hug it to your chest to support the weight, you’re lifting us all up.

Your Farmer-
Luke