“The idea of absolute freedom is fiction. It's based on the idea of an independent self. But in fact, there's no such thing. There's no self without other people. There's no self without sunlight. There's no self without dew. And water. And bees to pollinate the food that we eat...So the idea of behaving in a way that doesn't acknowledge those reciprocal relationships is not really freedom, it's indulgence.” Peter Coyote, New Age, August 1998

This quote was speaking loudly to me this week as I filled the fridge for our open farm hours Saturday.

Second cut hay, which is higher in protein and nutrition than first cut generally comes off the fields in Southern Maine around mid August. But this year, the heat and lack of rain has taken a toll and the crop of second cut hay is barely growing, fields look brown and quiet and many farms are wondering wether second cut will have enough rain and sun and time to grow before fall closes the season. After years of learning what’s best for our herd health, this climate curveball has us considering how and what we might feed our goats if second cut is not available.

It has us taking nothing for granted.

It is too easy to see ourselves as separate from nature in the modern world, separate from other. We mistake freedom for self dependence, when the only real freedom comes from seeing that every single thing around us is in us, as part of us, is essential to our being.

I am especially aware that our cheese is sunlight, and time filling water buckets and sunflower pollen floating on hot late summer wind, and the purr of Chris’ motorcycle as he heads to the store to buy ingredients, and the splash of milk in a stainless pail as I’m waking up, and hay gathered late August, and fall leaves which they goats enjoy like potato chips.

And I too am all these things: sun, the sigh of the earth after rain, a shooting star. It’s all connected, and we are all connected.

I wanted to share that thought with you visually as it plays out in my small farm life, but is true for you too. I hope this video is a short meditation on all those connections in every bite you eat, every breath you take.

Thanks for visiting farm friends.
Read more about our Farm philosophy and check out our live barn cam here: http://www.sunflowerfarm.info/sunflow...