Heartbeats and Hedges

Reflections on fall farm projects + an interoception meditation

The sheep ascend “Mt. Chippy”, a wood chip pile destined (eventually) for the garden. Foreground: leftover shale pile from another construction project; to the right, the beginnings of a soon-to-be-disassembled dead hedge.

To live in the country is to develop a very different relationship with the idea of “free time.” The pace at which brush piles accrete, seeds need starting, weeds need pulling, small and large repairs raise their urgent hands for attention, means that “boredom” is not really a thing. There is always something to be done. To live in the country is to learn the art of making peace with the unfinished and chaotic, at least if you ever want to sit down for five minutes and take in that beautiful view that drew you out here in the first place.

Out here in our patch of West Virginia, fall is in full swing. The leaves are turning and dropping to the forest floor, the various plant menaces that make yardwork treacherous (we have it all: poison ivy, Virginia creeper, poison oa…