I find it no small coincidence that various meanings of the word “practice” are constructed from the same root.  We “practice” yoga.  We “practice” religion. We “practice” medicine. We “practice” meditation.  Et cetera ad infinitum.  Because, when you get down to the core of it, we are just practicing living, aren’t we?  We learn and grow from experience and mistakes, and then do it again, but (hopefully) better. Everything is practice.

It's hard to believe somedays that we have been practicing farming here on this land for 16 years.  There are so many moving parts to running an organic market farm.  The inner workings of so many moving parts often reside only in our heads after 16 years of practice.  They’re so embedded there that we don’t even realize they’re there until we decide to leave in the middle of the season and we’re trying to prepare the farmily for our absence.

This is the first time we’ve ever left the farm in July and it felt monumental.  I might need more practice in taking vacation in July, but the farmily, of course, handled everything beautifully while Jason and I got away to practice our hobby (which, of course, needs more practice).

I used to be indifferent to Canadian Geese.  Most-or at least many-people detest what said people might call the nasty things.  I get it, I do.  They make a mess, have been known to be a bit on the aggressive side, and just don’t come across as majestic in the same way, say, a heron or egret does.  But now, Canadian Geese bring me much delight.

And this is why: my mother counts herself among the people who detest those nasty things.  My parents live along a creek where some Canadian Geese might be inclined to congregate. Don’t take this wrong—there is plenty of space elsewhere along this creek for the geese to gather and make their noisy messes—it is, perhaps, just in the nature of geese to choose places they’re most unwanted (I wouldn’t put it past the nasty things).  She told me a story where she was sort of chasing a goose away from their yard and it kept attempting to return a little further up from where she was, but still in their yard.  She was animated whilst telling me how she scolded the goose “Oh don’t you dare!”  

And so, every time I see a Canadian Goose, I am filled with delight at the image (movie? GIF?) that my imagination conjures of my mother marching, red faced (I did mention this is entirely the conjuring of my imagination, right?), pointing her finger at a goose and scolding it in plain English as if it were a toddler.  I even gave my mother some rubber boots (that I’m pretty sure she doesn’t own) to complete this picture.  It’s an adorable image (I’m so proud of my imagination!) and thus, brings me delight.

Part of this delight comes from the fact that I worry, sometimes, about my imagination.  With the advent of smart phones, and social media, YouTube, et al, I worry that my imagination doesn’t get enough use.  That it is shrinking in that “use it or lose it” sort of way.  But this movie—very loosely based on a true story—that appears automatically every time I see a Canadian Goose, is proof that there is still some life left in this old imagination.

We love to hate meteorologists.  We say, “it’s the only job where you can be wrong 75% of the time and still keep your job”.  But our minds are primed to remember the negative, and I doubt those numbers are accurate.  Would Brad Panovich have such a following if he really was wrong 75% of the time?  (are you a fanovich?)  One of the things I love about Brad Panovich (besides his ample communication and explanations of weather happenings), is that he owns it when he gets it wrong.  And explains why. However, I’m not here today to fangirl over one particular meteorologist.

I’m here today to say: I’ve never been more impressed with the weather predictions than I was yesterday.  We (a group of lazy river enthusiasts) try to lazy float in tubes down one of our local rivers once a month each summer.  We missed June because June didn’t June like it normally Junes and 3 hours with butts in the river at this year’s June temps was just going to be unpleasant.  And this was my only available Sunday in July.  So admittedly, part of my sudden meteorologist trust was born of a desperation to dwell in the laughter and ease that is a lazy tube float.

But the prediction was: storms, some of them nasty, in the a.m., clearing between noon and 1p.m. (our usual put-in time) with temperatures in the low to mid 80s (pretty perfect float weather), then clouding up again in the evening with a few scattered thunderstorms.

It looked nasty in the morning.  There were some skeptics, but most of us hung on as I did my best to spread my (sudden? Newfound?) trust in the meteorologists.  We left the farm- tubes, sunscreen and hats in hand-under cloudy cool conditions, but we trusted. And sure enough, just as we sat down in our tubes in the river, the clouds dissipated revealing a generous sun which lingered with us as we eased carefree down the river, bathed in the joy of just being and just being together.