{"id":114,"date":"2012-10-04T21:38:51","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T21:38:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-10-04T21:38:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T21:38:51","slug":"first-day-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centernet.pcusa.org\/food-faith\/first-day-school\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day of School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
Today, farm school begins.  Today, the mental prep work ends and the physical work begins.  In the weeks and months leading up to this moment, I have sat with the words of many great farmer philosophers and I’ve not escaped unchanged.
 <\/p>\n

I’m excited for what’s ahead.  Farm School will be an exercise in living simply, practicing gratitude, being responsible to a local community and learning to respect nature’s limits.  It will be a chance to use my body in tangible ways to connect with the awesome force that sustains life on this planet.  It is the promise of a more authentic and responsible way of living on this planet –  the sense of being in right relationship with place.  With each passing day my belief in this path has grown more resolute.  And for the life I have stretching out in front of me, farming feels like a sacred calling.
 <\/p>\n

But as much as I have fallen in love with this line of work intellectually<\/em> I am waiting to find out if I will appreciate it as much in its day-to-day practice.  I don’t approach this year expecting farming to be a tranquil existence.  I expect to be humbled by the work, challenged by monotony and to be a little bit lonely.  We won’t be getting rich, and if this were our <\/em>farm, I expect I would be dogged by stressed.
 <\/p>\n

And so, looking ahead to a year from now, Dina and I have a lot of questions for our future selves:
 <\/p>\n