When the first zucchini comes in from the garden with that sweet green scent of their slightly prickly skin, and the first sauté of slices in olive oil with a smashed clove of new garlic, a fleck of chile, it is so welcome after a spring full of salads and greens.

Straw, littering my path like golden hieroglyphs on white papyrus, stands like a lynchpin (of the spinning-wheel?) to the matrix of culture and agriculture. That complex web of interconnection between growers, artisan food makers, animals, microorganisms, cultural food traditions, evolving tastes, gut health, etc. that has co-evolved for millennia. Salumi, wine, cheese, bread, miso, kimchi, grasses that provide substantial carbohydrates, my six varieties of radicchio — none of it would exist without this web.

If no one had noticed the chickens snowed into the upper barn they would have gone quietly without food for days. Just noticing them saved them. Letting your awareness encompass something — a farm, a baby, someone ailing — is very different, yet no less vital, than driving some mission forward. We all have it in us to do both but often the care side gets little praise.