The Mindful Farmers Daily Diary Day 85

Good morning everyone and welcome once more to Ballinwillin House Farm and gardens. The weather is improving and looking good for my hay crop this week. I know you may think “will this hay season ever end” but it goes on always for a while every year but it is a very important part of my life and farming. This morning as I was out in Johns Mountain I could not but notice and inhale the landscape of this farm and area. When you think about landscape it is not just there, it took millennia to come here. Landscape is the first born of creation and it was here long before we were ever dreamed of. It was here without us and it watched us arrive and invade its privacy but we all know that the world would be impossible without landscape. Then the question I ask you this morning is why do so many of us not notice or pay attention to landscape and its display and array of natural beauty? Why do so many of us abuse, raid and rape it? Is the answer ignorance or greed or blindness or a combination of all three or do we believe we own it? I believe landscape is too shy to answer us as it has lived so long and so elegantly without us it always holds a watching eye but never intrudes. It is always so still and silent and beautiful. So the next time you are out for a walk or a drive, pay attention to the landscape around you as it will hold your mind if you ask it to.

Continue to pray, bless and heal each other and wear that smile.

The Mindful Farmer

Patrick