Steel Pony Farm

@sundogorganicfarm I saw your post just after seeing this and thought, what the heck , I'll ask the same question Do any entymologists out there know who this beauty is?

I’m really happy to grow food for people I know. Everything about it is sweet like carrots after first frost. I spend a big chunk of my life outdoors. I have a close connection with so much of the food I eat. My kids get to understand what I do in the world. An amazing group of people join me each day and together we laugh and sweat and then after talking for hundreds of hours as we work we open our hearts to one another, because really it’s the most interesting thing to talk... about at that point, and we create a sense of closeness that feeds my soul. And then after all of the seeds, the hours in the sun, the care for the plants and the prayers we get to look you in the eyes as we pass you your bin, overflowing with veggies, that you will use to energize yourself toward the good work you are committed to. Voila. This sense of peace and fulfillment and connection permeates out through the food we grow. Living organisms are impacted by their environments. When we treat them with love and attention there is an impact - be it through the extra micronutrients they receive through foliar sprays, the beneficial microbes they interact with because of good management, or the way we hold them and this entire place in our hearts during our meditations. Who is to say what does or doesn’t make an impact? This is all especially potent when I take a moment before eating to ask for this food’s blessing and to acknowledge it’s journey. So many cultures have included prayer as a part of their eating ritual that I’m convinced there is something to it outside of religious tradition - but I don't pray to what is above - I pray to what is on my plate and what is beneath my feet. Everything I eat already lived and died and so I pray that as I keep living - through the investment that they make in me - that I may do justice to their lives. I pray that through me, they may be incarnated into something worth dying for. And I ask for them to share their sense of sacrifice, and wisdom and patience, so that I am better able to live and to grow this food and in doing so to serve you better in your journey as you eat it.

Hi Folks. I have qualified for a wage subsidy program that will give me support to hire someone between the ages of 21 and 30. I am looking for someone who can work full time until the end of October. If you know of anyone who has an interest in growing food, being outdoors, eating well, and who is physically fit can you please get them to email a resume to [email protected]?

I like that the world on pause because of COVID has given so many people the bandwidth to put time and energy into blacklivesmatter. Per usual, I look to the natural world as my teacher to understand more about the human world. This photo is a piece of my field that has fallen into disrepair the past few years. I am intrigued by the diversity that is coming to its aid. Each plant is saying, Hey soil! I see you are in trouble and I am here to help! I play an important role in... the process of pasture and forest succession toward a balanced community. I matter. I am here for a reason. I have value because of who I am. I do not know what role humans are supposed to play, from an evolutionary point of view, in the bigger picture of life on earth. Whatever that role is, it’s nonsense to imagine some kind of natural order in which people who evolved to have white skin play a more important role than people who evolved to have colored skin. I am excited by the energy, the cacophony of voices, and the changing power structures. I am excited to learn how to be a better ally to all people who have been marginalized by this destructive and violent culture. Finally, monocultures are not in service to life. Diversity rules. This is as true in agriculture as it is in human culture and has been the guiding principle in 4.5 billion years of evolution of life on earth. Western, reductionist, colonial culture has been fighting to squash diverse cultures, crops, ideas, religions, medicines, ways of life and systems of knowing for hundreds of years. I welcome the changes that are at hand with hopes that my children may get a chance to live in a world that embraces and validates the diverse history of human culture.

More than ever I’m falling in love with the natural world and I’m so grateful that my vocation gives me the chance, every day, to be immersed in it. There was a time in my life, before I had given much thought to the cycles of growth, decay and regeneration that all of us carbon based beings rely on, when I surely would have thought of this day as bad weather. But now I give thanks to the rain, this natural alarm clock that wakes up the communities of organisms who have been ...dormant since fall. Thanks to the seeds that germinate and pump this moisture through their stems and into their leaves, creating newness and freshness as they grow where before there was just black soil. Thanks to the soil microbes who digest insoluble nutrients to make them available to these plants. Thanks to the earthworms who tunnel through the soil eating smaller life forms, creating pore spaces for water to infiltrate and leaving their castings as a gift to the soil community. Thanks to the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi who connect all of the organisms in this beautiful, perfect community, transferring nutrients from one space to another in an economy that balances competition with cooperation in service of the greater good - the proliferation of life on earth. It’s hard now, through these eyes and these experiences, to feel anything but complete joy while covered in mud and planting these aromatic herbs that will be enjoyed by YOU, the people investing in local producers who are doing everything we can to regenerate local ecosystems, sequester carbon, increase biodiversity, increase water infiltration and produce nutrient rich food. God I love this. Thanks for your support which makes all of this possible. Your farmer, Mike