Just now I felt, as I summed the individual plants I had eaten today, an awe of what it really means to be a farmer. We debate a five-day vs four- or three-day workweek; a six-hour vs an eight-hour- or a ten-hour day; two weeks paid vacation or six; a farmer has no hours–no salary— and no limits on his/her time and energy. Even on holidays, farmers have duties they can’t afford ignore (I don’t know, but I would imagine even on farms owned by people who practice a strict observance of a sabbath-like day, where no work may be done, farmers do whatever they have to do to keep plants (and for some, animals) alive and flourishing. It’s because of the efforts of farmers that we have more than one kind of lettuce, or tomato, or apple. We owe it to the steady, persistent, hard-working human beings who have practiced the art of farming that such things as heirloom seeds exist today. When I say the true art, I don’t mean that I believe there is only one true art or true way to reach it; I mean that the art is practiced truly–from the heart, the gut, and the head–with as much joy in getting it right as in the prosperity that should come from that.