When we bought our acreage in 2005, it was a former cornfield one full season removed from production. You could still walk across fairly bare earth scattered with corn cobs, mud, and weeds. The ground was hard. The dirt was dry. After years of farming, what was left near the surface was mostly red clay.
There were large ravines and ruts everywhere. Berms had been added over time to manage runoff, and a couple of patches that stayed too soggy to farm had become overgrown with weeds and trees. You could look at the land and see years of people trying to work with the water, even when the results were not especially graceful.
Over the next fifteen years or so, I did plenty of that myself. I knocked down some berms and changed where the water flowed. We added a pond to catch runoff. We added a driveway and fixed the ditch along the road so water would actually pass through the culvert and continue toward the creek. There was grass seed, pond work, tree work, rerouting, maintenance, and no small amount of money.
I worked hard to get the ground into a more manageable form. Not finished. Not controlled. Manageable.
That distinction matters when you own land.
The maple tree we planted about ten years ago is a good example. It was barely a twig when it went into the ground. Now it is large enough that my son climbs on it. Nothing dramatic happened on any single day. It simply received years of water, sunlight, care, weather, and time.
I planted two apple trees, too. A deer got one of them. The surviving tree grew, and I eventually planted another little one that will need years before it becomes much of anything. That is the nature of planting. You do the work now and wait for fruit later, knowing there are no guarantees.
This year, we are getting no apples. I am fairly sure a late freeze got the blossoms. I have also noticed insects taking over a couple of limbs, so those need attention before the damage spreads farther.
There is no reason to panic. Observe what happened. Do the next right thing. Trim what needs trimming. Protect what can be protected. Learn something for the next season.
All of that has had me thinking about how unusual 2026 has felt on this property. It has been one of the hottest and wettest years I can remember since we moved here. That combination has me mowing thick, green grass every week in August. In a normal year, I would be mowing every two or three weeks by now, and much of the grass would already be turning brown from the summer heat.
Not this year. This year we still have green grass, and we have plenty of it.
The rest of the acreage has responded in its own ways. We had a strong harvest that started with winter crops and moved into strawberries. I did not even get to the asparagus before it was three or four feet tall. The garden woke up early. Flowers bloomed early. The grapes burned off quickly. Tomatoes are arriving in droves. We have plenty of peppers and potatoes. The sweet potatoes drowned out. Squash borers ended the squash after we got around ten fruits.
The same heat and rain that helped one thing overwhelmed another. The same conditions that kept the grass lush left me mowing constantly. The same season that gave us tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and flowers gave us no apples at all.
The same rain means different things depending on where it falls, when it arrives, what is growing, and what that particular thing needs.
I think life works that way more often than we admit. We like simple rules because simple rules feel controllable. Rain is good. Heat is bad. Growth means success. Loss means failure. But the truth depends on the season and the system surrounding it.
Owning land keeps teaching me that I do not tame nature. Nature does what it does. I build systems. I redirect what I can. I maintain what needs attention. I adapt when the old plan stops fitting. I plant again when something does not make it. And when the work finally bears fruit, I try to slow down long enough to enjoy it.
There will always be another rut, another damaged limb, another crop that does not cooperate, and another stretch of grass that needs mowing sooner than expected. There will also be maple trees that become climbing trees, ponds that catch the runoff, gardens that produce more tomatoes than we can keep up with, and little apple trees worth waiting on.
I cannot control the rain. I can pay attention to what it changes and decide what to do next.
That is the nature of things, and that is why I need to go out and mow again today.
