Weedy Fields With A Message

G'Day Folks,

Emily got back from deliveries this week and told me “Susan said she wouldn’t buy our veggies if you don’t write your weekly newsletter”. What a great compliment, it certainly put a lot of wind in my sails. This farming journey has made me realise I enjoy writing, and I’m thrilled that others enjoy reading it! 

This week I passed our vegetable fields as I motored past on the tractor. All I can see now is a field of weeds. Nature has taken back what was once neat, productive rows of mixed vegetables. Something I thought was so permanent—something I believed would last forever—has all but disappeared.

For the last six years, that land has controlled my emotions. When the crops were healthy and the weather was kind, I felt happy. When everything was dying and the weather turned harsh, I felt like a failure.

I used to stand over these fields and think to myself, this is it, this is me now, for the rest of my life. Every part of me that searched for meaning and purpose was invested in that soil. And yet, as soon as we stopped, nature began removing every trace of us. It makes me wonder—what was the point of it all?

I imagine that someday, all signs of our existence will be gone. And I’m not just talking about ourselves here, I mean us as a species. Like stars that once lit up the sky, swallowed by the dark—no trace they ever existed, despite the eons of light they once poured into our universe.

Why did I get so angry with myself? Why was I so scared? Why did I believe it all mattered so much? Why did I lose so much sleep? Why did I work so hard?

As I gaze across these fields, with those questions circling my mind, I can’t help but feel like the weeds are laughing at me. It’s only been a couple of months, and already some areas look as though we were never even here. And yet, I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel like what we did was pointless.

These weeds have shown me something profound: it didn’t matter what we did—because the moment we stopped, whether it was now or in 60 years time— it would all disappear just as quickly. And yet, that doesn’t make it meaningless. It’s not what we leave behind that matters, but what we take with us.

At some point, there will be no memory of this life. What happens after death is anyone’s guess. Maybe we don’t even get to keep the memories. Maybe they vanish too.

What then?

I guess the only thing that ever mattered was the moments themselves and the memories those moments left behind. It was the experience of it all that means something to me. We never knew how we were going to do any of it, or whether any of it would work. The whole damn thing has been an adventure into the unknown.

I feel like I really lived these past years, l wasn’t just idling along. Every day we were learning something different, trying to come up with ways to make it all work. This farm is littered with ideas and inventions, some successful and others not. And yet when I look over these fields today, you’d swear we were never here. 

This land has been worked by many different people, over many decades and there’s little sign of their adventures here either. It’s like we all painted the same canvas, but we didn’t realise the paint would always fade.

If the paint always fades, why are we so god damn worried about every brush stroke? Why do we paint pictures to impress others and ignore our own desires? We take each stroke so seriously because we believe our paint lasts forever.  

It’s a relief, actually. To know I don’t need to leave anything behind. That whatever I achieve will eventually perish. No matter what strokes I make with my brush, no matter how beautiful the image. It will all eventually fade away. 

For some, this belief may cause despair. I can understand how this could make one feel nihilistic. It could force one to ask “Nothing has meaning. All is empty. Why bother.” But the same belief could also ask a different question “Nothing has meaning? Good. Now I am free to create!”

I'm feeling the latter. I feel weightless—free to explore, bound only by the limits of our reality. Yes, I still need to earn money, to live and support my family. But I don’t need to earn it to build something that lasts beyond my life. I don’t need to be remembered. I don’t need it to matter. There’s no such thing as permanent paint.

Once our basic needs are met, the rest can be spent on adventure. If we can find a way to meet our basic needs whilst on an adventure—hell freaking yehhhh!

That’s how I want to live now—moving from one adventure to the next, spending as little time as possible just covering our essentials. To own as little as possible, and to experience as much as possible—I think that will be our family’s motto.

I’m not saying it’ll always be easy. It won’t be some kind of fairytale. There will be difficulties. No life exists without them. Freedom isn’t painless. It doesn’t exist without some form of suffering. To not experience these things is the opposite of freedom.

Freedom, to me, is realising that no matter what we do—no matter how hard we work or what we build—the weeds will return and the paint will fade. Nature will erase our efforts. And all that will remain are the memories we carry, until even those are eaten away as our bodies return to soil. Others may hold memories of you when you're gone, but they're not yours. Those memories belong only to the living. 

Thank you for being part of the most wonderful memories of our lives. We’re not finished yet, so this isn’t farewell. But after being in hospital this week and coming back to these weedy fields, it hit me just how special these years have been. And they wouldn’t have been what they were without all of you—your support, your encouragement, your presence on this journey.

Thank you also to everyone who sent messages after hearing about my injury. You made me feel truly supported—like part of an extended family— I’m so truly grateful.

I’m feeling much better now and will be back to my usual self very soon!

P.s. I hope this week's newsletter makes the cut Susan and you’ll keep buying our veggie box!

Thank YOU for joining us on this epic journey & supporting Your Organic farmers!