First Thought on Growing a Farmer

I went through Chapter 1 rather quickly, didn’t really know what I had read. It was the last few pages of Chapter 2 dragged me into the story. I could see the writer’s hard work and feel his genuine heart that he would like to provide customers with fresh, healthy food on time and on a regular basis, and he was content and proud of what he was doing.  I liked the fact that the writer appreciated food and worked his best effort to produce clean food. It was to my biggest surprise that the farm’s first growing season ended on a sour note. I couldn’t help but felt sorry for the writer and started thinking about what if I were at his position. The financials was difficult to ignore. However, the writer explained the cold numbers and discussed his failure with peace and hope in mind, from which I started to believe he should be successful now, at least his mindset prepared him for success.

If I ever owned a farm, the last thing I would do is beekeeping. Obviously I am afraid of bees, especially a large amount of bees. Just thinking about an image of bees clustering around the hive made my skin crawl and my stomach hurt. My fear did not prevent me from admiring people who were brave enough to be a beekeeper. Furthermore, beekeeping is sometimes associated with intelligent weirdo, such as Sherlock Holmes, which made the profession somehow high-end, at least to me. It was a pleasure learning about beekeeping, without looking at any visuals.

After watching the episode about apples at class, I realized I have never tried to know about a fruit that I consumed so often. The closest thing I had done, comparing with picking apples from a real tree, was picking apples in a farming game when I was a child. In the documentary, the smaller farmer, who could not compete on the price of apples with the large companies, chose to grow cider apples and other unique spices to make a living. The writer also focused on producing his own cider and vinegar, but not for the purpose of selling them. He enjoyed it as a hobby and shared his cider with friends, which showed the general tone of the book as well, very laid back. The description of how he boiled down the apple juice made me buy a bottle apple juice this weekend.

I always had mixed feeling about dairy. I enjoyed the taste of them. But the better the taste was, the more fat it contained. I read through this part in a glimpse of eye to stop me from craving fro cheese or butter.