Killing More Honeybees

experiences farming on the eastern shore of Virginia

Many of you already know me, but some of you may not. When we moved to our farm in 2010, I had no idea what I was getting into. But without the folly of youth, we wouldn’t start much of anything, would we?

If my younger self had known exactly how much work farming would be, he simply would never have begun. I had idealistic notions of working “with” Nature rather than “against” Nature — as if somehow she would spontaneously provide food without effort from me. It turns out that nature is quite happy producing literally anything, and it’s up to me to make sure these are plants that can nourish human beings. It turns out this doesn’t happen without a lot of work.

The same thing is true in the mind. The mind will entertain any ideas, but without constant weeding, tending, and composting, the mind rapidly becomes overrun w…