The weather where I live has been difficult this spring. It was hot and dry when it should have been cold and wet and then it went cold and not so very wet when it should have been much much warmer. We saw frost way deep into April when last frost should have been early March. The vineyard workers were going nuts pumping water out of the Russian River trying to protect the buds from a frozen premature death. Those who monitor the river’s flow saw a real discernible drop in the water level on those nippy mornings.
I was also frantic trying to protect my tiny, vulnerable 15 tomato starts already in the dirt. I started them in January and they were ready to go out. I was watching the calender – I put the starts out in good faith! I had a plastic green house shelter cover that I faithfully stretched over the seedlings every night and opened back up every morning for weeks and weeks.
One of the theologians I am most in conversation with at the moment (and by “in conversation” I mean I read his book and then think about it a lot and occasionally write sermons and blog entries) writes “Finally, participating in Community Supported Agriculture provides not only an opportunity to enjoy the abundance of the harvest but also the chance to share in the disappointment of a dry season when the crops fail for lack of rain. This is one truth that we would all do well to remember and to acknowledge before every meal: despite it’s apparent regularity and abundance on our supermarket shelves, food is indeed a precarious and therefore precious commodity.” (Daniel G. Deffenbauch, Learning the Language of the Fields: Tilling & Keeping as Christian Vocation, 2006 Cowley Publications, pg 193)