hay

It would not likely occur to those born after 1990, but any who share an on farm history that, like mine, goes back to the 1950's know that haymaking faces different challenges today.  Chief among those is the fact that the weather has changed markedly.
We succeeded in making hay in part because the second half of the summer would feature a significant number of mornings with no dew on the grass at all, given the low humidity and the overnight breeze.  Remember too that we were dealing with small square bale balers that were very unforgiving in wet hay.  But where we often could start the day by ten in the morning then, now we must wait as late as three in the afternoon to make a start, even with the big round balers.
Our water cycle is broken.   Our humidity is too high.  We have too much rain and too much runoff because our soil is too hard.  The soil is too hard because of the steady decrease in organic matter.  The hard soil and runoff, along with a surplus of both rain and rainy days means the plants do not put out extensive root systems.  This leads to less carbon sequestered and thus less organic matter. It is a vicious circle.
This is our climate change issue to deal with here on the farms.  And we must start with the realization that the way we farm creates our own weather in a significant sense.  Climate change is largely not what someone else is doing to us.  We are going to need to look in the mirror and start thinking about a different farming system.

freedom

A person is about as free as she is capable.  Aside from the obvious, that citizens preserve their freedom by keeping control of their government, freedom is hedged around by a patch of tough caveats, all alleles of capability:  responsibility, willingness, tolerance, vision, cooperation, practicality, level footedness.

A man cannot make himself available to help others in need if he has not his own house and household in order. 

circle

I have thought for some time that the conventional view of political belief as a straight line from left to right with everyone located somewhere on it is wrong.  This thought tends to come to the top when I am discouraged by the seeming impossibility of a real discussion among acquantances, friends, neighbors and so on.  And the thought is durable and recurring because it jibes with my life lived as a farmer which has taught me that all things on the land operate in a cycle.

Then I visualize the political spectrum as more a circle, with certain points of at least tentative agreement.  For instance, today it became evident to me that right and left share a similar horror of centralized power, perhaps for somewhat different reasons.  The left recoils from the thought of a central authority with power enough to stifle thought and belief and imprison those thinkers authority objects to.  Authoritarianism and surveilance is anathema on the left.

The right, meanwhile, goes into fits of terror and rage over the United Nations, thinking of it as a coming world government.  The individual, for the right, should reign supreme. 

There is here some shared ground, the chance to talk and explore feelings and deeply held beliefs.  It is an opportunity to see the humanity of the other, precious because it is so rare.

Meanwhile the land continues in its cycle of growth, harvest, death, decay and new life.  Desired and undesirable plants blend by decay in propelling the cycle forward.   I cannot think of a better metaphor on which to build a sane political system.