Oh, I forgot to say, if you’ve enjoyed the food you’ve eaten this week … if you’ve eaten this week … thank a farmer. I don’t know what all the people that work this corner of God’s soil do, and where it fits in, but you’re never more aware of the interdependence of things than when you stop to think about how it works together. Then you can’t help but be impressed.
On average, U.S. farmers plant about 90 million acres of corn each year. Most, about 40 percent, is used as the main energy ingredient in livestock feed. You might not eat the grain in these silos for a variety of reasons.
It could be because the corn you enjoy comes from the heartland, or just closer to you in general. Even more likely, the grain that goes into those giant containers sitting out there in a quiet November sunset are grown for livestock. (You enjoy a different variety than the kept animals do. I could go into this, but I would have ag econ flashbacks.)
Anyway, it’s an impressive system, sometimes held together precariously, but there are always some hardworking people involved at the root and fruit, meat and peat, and salt and pepper levels of the system. Some of them have worked the land for generations. Some work it for corporations. Some are working it for their future generations, as a part of international relations.
Be thankful for that, too.
These were photos from the end of what was probably my last outdoor ride of the year. I titled it “I need it to warm up; no way that’s the last outdoor ride,” because it was not a good ride. But it won’t be warm soon, and so I took my bike down to the basement, where it will sit on the smart trainer and, starting soon, pedal me through several months and many miles on Zwift.
April 9th was my first ride outside this year. November 26th was probably the last one. Some seasons are just too short.
