When consistency is alive with care, it becomes ritual. When it loses heart, it becomes routine.
Farming, I’ve come to learn, is all about consistency.
Sow, plant, harvest, prep, repeat.
It’s the continuous cycle a farmer finds himself enmeshed in (alongside a thousand other details that often dangle in the back of the mind at 2 a.m., when drifting back to sleep feels impossible).
In its best form, consistency expresses itself as ritual - an intentional outpouring of care and devotion.
Local farming legend Paul Maschka puts it well: "The best fertilizer is the farmer’s shadow."
Indeed, simply showing up and giving one’s whole self to something every day creates the conditions for abundance.
But it’s easy for ritual to slip into routine.
Routine is consistency without heart.
It’s what happens when we lose touch with the sacredness of small actions done in service of a greater vision. It’s forgetting the feeling that first compelled us to pursue our passions.
It is the quiet shift from "I get to..." to "I have to..." - a mindset that, over time, can breed resentment.
The slide from ritual to routine is subtle, often unconscious. It seems to creep in by default, a slow drift that accompanies any sustained effort (especially as bills pile up and rent is due next week, and that invoice you have been meaning to send still sits in your to-do stack).
In its wake, ideas stiffen, inspiration thins, and flow gives way to friction.
Ruts begin to form, those familiar grooves that, if left unchecked, can turn to stagnation or worse, degradation.
I share this because lately, I’ve felt myself slipping into routine.
I still feel joy in the farm work, and I genuinely cherish the moments of connection with our community. But there are times when I’m operating from a place of "have to," rather than "get to."
As someone in my mid-30s trying to make small-scale farming financially viable, the pressures can at times crowd out presence. There is always another idea to try, another admin task needing attention.
In these heavier moments, I try to remember that every day offers a chance for revival - a remembering of purpose and a reintroduction of ritual back into life.
And I’m encouraged by the fact that each small act in service of this revival has a compounding effect.
So perhaps let this serve as a gentle reminder to check in with yourself:
Where might ritual have given way to routine?
And how might you create a little space to rekindle the fire that first led you down your path?
That’s at least what I’ll be doing this week as I’m out harvesting beets.
✌️