The Weather

not just small talk....

Dear Friends,

Before I jump into happenings on the farm, two writerly announcements. First, a plug for a podcast that recently dropped where I talk about DAUGHTER OF A PROMISE, writing, and life in general.

Click Here to Listen

The second is a plug for a writing conference called Understory at which I will be teaching July 24-27 in Park City. It is founded by my good friend and editor, Annie Tucker with Dani Shapiro as keynote and promises to be a writing getaway like none other, for many reason, but hey it’s Park City!!

In the past I’ve concluded my newsletters with books I’ve enjoyed recently, but I’ll mention THE SNAG right off the bat. Narrated by author Tessa McWatt, the audio version was mesmerizing as I raked bare earth, spread seed, and spent many hours coaxing said seeds to germinate, moving hoses, rotating sprinklers and using the good old hand nozzle.

The book provided a haunting backdrop to my chores as I began to relate to it on a deep level. This memoir is a meditation on grief, a lament for what the author has lost but also what we all are losing. THE SNAG is a call to action, to care for what we still have. In forestry, the term “snag” refers to a standing dead, or dying tree often missing its top branches. At the end of their lives, trees remain connected to and in communication with neighboring trees and plants through the mycorrhizal network. They also contribute to the greater forest ecosystem by offering a habitat for much life.

With poetic prose, McWatt likens her aging mother to a snag, finding metaphor and solace while walking among trees. The book references the rather modern term “Solastalgia,” which is a sense of homesickness or melancholy experienced while still residing in a place after it has been altered or damaged. It is the first I heard this word, but I am sure many people can empathize, as in returning to the Pacific Palisades after it burned to the ground or Asheville, North Carolina after the great flooding post Hurricane Helene.

I may not have experienced solastalgia personally, but I do suffer climate anxiety. (Today, the air on the farm in southwest Wisconsin was filled with smoke from Canadian wildfires and my mind goes right to the fact that the world is coming to an end.) Mental health experts agree that climate anxiety is not a disorder as much as a normal response to our ecological crisis. It is characterized by feelings of being out of control, overwhelmed, stressed, and depressed. I am about to turn sixty, but young adults are disproportionately affected by this condition, feeling worried, sad, and afraid about the future.

From this April… It doesn’t help that my last two springs in Wisconsin have been filled with these types of warnings.

Ironically, I come from a long line of people preoccupied with the weather. My grandfather and mother went to bed really early and even rose pre-dawn, making me think farming was already in my genes. The weather obsession has even been passed on to my son who tracks weather from his skyscraper office in Manhattan, uses his vacation time to study snow science and avalanche safety, and follows THE POWDER BUOY on Instagram to be prepared for the next big atmospheric river that might hit the Wasatch back…

Thirty years ago, my mother would open her daily call to me with a synopsis of my weather. I lived in Boston and she was waking up in Dallas, with her sole source of information being Al Roper on the Today Show. Her commentary on my relative humidity had me chuckling inside, or more likely rolling my eyes. I like to think my weather obsession is loftier, as my chosen life outdoors requires knowledge of temperature, precipitation, wind speed. But it’s not just me… farmers are at the mercy of the weather!

My farming nightmares feature deluge rain with our crops floating away. Our produce manager emphasizes that no rain causes certain problems, but there is nothing worse than too much rain - don’t even mention 2018 to him - the summer it never stopped raining. Talk about trauma. There isn’t a day I am not refreshing multiple weather apps in order to plan or prepare, or possibly to just give credence to my worrying. Not enough rain, too much rain. Wildfire conditions? Tornado warning? Hurricane? I was looking at the headlines in Salt Lake City yesterday and although northern UT is not in drought conditions, seventy percent of the state is dry as a bone heading into wild-fire season.

Doing our small part for the environment and combating climate change was a major reason we embarked on this farming adventure. Not for the faint of heart!! Let’s just say I regularly consume a sleep aid :)

The best anti-anxiety medication

Or I hang out with these guys. They know how to just “be” and when lambing time came around, all the ewes knew exactly what to do. No drama. No help needed. Very impressive. Thirty moms, thirty five babies. Nature, while it threatens powerful destruction at times, is also incredibly soothing.

I don’t think I’m alone with this climate anxiety problem… How is the weather affecting you?

What else I’m Reading:

A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway (talk about rain) John and I are studying Hemingway’s short stories as well as this classic novel. I have mentioned

Christopher Frizzelle

‘s bookclub in the past but another plug because after Hemingway we will be reading and discussing works by Joan Didion from July 7 to September 8. It would be so fun to see you in the Frizzlit ZOOM room which is filled with really smart and funny people.

And lastly:

Flynn Creek Farmers are nerding out over soil health and nutrition. Click here to learn about our worm casting and biochar soil mixes. Perfect for folks potting their vegetable containers this month!