I failed again... I'm glad.

When it comes to making time to write, I failed the past 8 months. Not for lack of desire, every day I eagerly scribble into my Range Writer notebook topics and thoughts I will unravel via my keyboard. Here are a few of my prompts of lately:

• Photosynthesis is magic

• On climate change; no one can run from our problems. Might as well dig in, in place.

• Water rights allocations are concepts that we humans created with our minds, and implemented with our man-made infrastructure. But we humans aren’t evolving our 100 year old water concepts as quickly as nature is evolving. What happens when we humans do not evolve with natural systems?

• How many people does it take to “feed” a farm??? For ours, 150. Our quest to reach 150 committed monthly eaters.

• Potassium bromate in foods like noodles and breads- what this obesogen is doing to us?

• The Biden Administration proposes equilateral water allotment cuts to CA, NV, UT & AZ, an unprecedented break from the “Law of the River” which favored states with seniority over others. What could this mean for the future of water rights in the West?

• The Center for Biological Diversity files suit against the USFW and Deschutes Basin irrigation districts over the Habitat Conservation Plan/ spotted frog. How this imminent threat could unify our basin like never before.

• Following on the above, the how and the why the ESA (endangered species act) is broken.

• Highlight the work of the High Desert Partnership based in Harney County, OR and why this collaborative group is the future of conservation models.

• Updates on the journey of fundraising for Range Revolution, the good, bad and ugly I’m seeing in the world of finance and why I am determined to learn the language of finance.

• How a group of local food activists (myself included) took over a wholesale foods distribution business, placed it into cooperative ownership, and what we are learning about distribution.

The list goes on, but I’ll stop here. My mind is at work from 5:15 am to 9 pm and while this engine is productive in some ways, it’s voracious ability to think is often my downfall.

What I’m learning about people smarter than I, who have a practice of publishing their writings consistently, is they make the SPACE to turn it off. Turning it off, perhaps counter intuitive to some, is often the thing that propels my work when I turn it back on. Between the ambition of my start-up Range Revolution, to managing the business opportunities of our farm Casad Family Farms, and raising a spirited 21 month old Hesston, the pressure to make the most of each minute of “work time” has set a cadence I don’t agree with, nor has been effective. So, here I am, beginning again.

Will anyone read my writings? Perhaps, I hope, but it’s not necessarily the point. The practice of turning it all off to go for a walk around the farm, and then sitting down to let my mind explore through the clicks of fingers on a keyboard are a part of my intellectual wellbeing. Much of my work revolves around a central axis of systems change in the food/fiber/agriculture sectors and this complex work needs me to think aloud in community, and that is what I promise you this space will be. Honest, transparent, exploratory, filled with humility and seeking community input.

In the spirit of one of my last essays, “Just Begin,” here we are. Every time I fail I learn something and the past 8 months have been intensely useful in illuminating where recalibration is needed for flourishing. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to turn it off, so that is what I will be working on in the coming months.

Try going for a long walk today with no podcast or audiobook or music. What do you find in the silence?

In dedication to place, people and soil,

Cate

For my readers, I’d like to extend this offer of 20% off any Meat Box from our farm, delivered to your doorstep NATIONWIDE. This is one way to directly support our efforts and activism.

Use code RANGE20 at checkout at Casad Family Farms