Just to follow up on yesterday's post to try to explain why I enjoy days like that. Among several reasons, probably the main one is talking to farmers. They, I think are a unique breed apart from the rest of us. Probably because they literally live and die by the sunlight, rain, soil, plants and animals. This makes them by default, intimately aware of nature, and its cycles and whims. On average, I've found that, especially subsistence farmers, have an understanding of our dependence on the natural world from which the rest of us have disconnected. This does not make farmers innocent or exempt, but it does mean that meeting and working with them is always a privilege, and gives me a chance better understand the natural world.

To take this a step further--in my opinion--historically in the Christian faith, many have seen the priest as humanity's conduit to God. And in a lot of places farmer's have sought the assistance of the clergy to connect with God. Ironically, I think we may have had this all backwards.