“A competent farmer is his own boss. He has learned the discipline necessary to go ahead on his own, as required by economic obligation, loyalty to his place, pride in his work. His workdays require the use of long experience and practical judgement, for the failures of which he knows that he will suffer. His days do not begin and end by rule, but in response to necessity, interest, and obligation. They are not measured by the clock, but by the task and his endurance; they last as long as necessary or as long as he can work. He has mastered intricate formal patterns in ordering his work within the overlapping cycles–human and natural, controllable and uncontrollable–of the life of a farm.”
-Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, Sierra Club Books, 1977, page 44.

I love this man. Not only did he predict the current crisis of american agriculture in the above quoted book but his writing has untangled the frustrated rat’s nest of thought and feeling I walk around with. In this book he details our current crisis in terms of culture, character and ecology. So far the main take aways are; return to small farms because they are better for the economy, ecology and culture of america, they build stronger people and more resilient communities and they produce higher quality and more sustainable food. I’m so happy to have found a good writer like this.