Wrenshall news: Let the sun breathe in

The first week of June we brought the last of the rutabagas from our root cellar to the Whole Foods Co-op in Duluth. The following week we started the first summer deliveries to our Food Share members. There are a lot of things that power the farm and allow us to provide local organic produce to our community year-round, but arguably one of the most obvious and most important is the sun.

We’ve been seeing a lot of the sun these days and, while we could definitely use some rain to balance it all out, it is a good reminder of where all the greens we are sending come from. Anyone who has met my father-in-law, John Fisher-Merritt, knows how much he loves talking about photosynthesis. At the Midwest Organic Farming conference nine years ago he had the whole gathering of 3,000 agriculture enthusiasts sing his version of the classic doxology that he renamed “The Farmer’s Doxology.”

It starts off:

Praise photosynthesis so fine

Engine of all life on earth

so great

Doth water and carbon

dioxide combine

To bring us good

carbohydrate.

Plants are the original solar panels. They literally convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released as energy in our own bodies. Put simply, the sun fuels plants, plants fuel us. Plants also make our atmosphere breathable. Oxygen is a byproduct of photosynthesis and most of us know that we as humans need it to survive.

Last words from George Floyd in Minneapolis were “I can’t breathe.” The last words of Eric Garner, who was killed in 2014 in New York by a police chokehold, were “I can’t breathe.” Ross Gay is a poet and writer and teaches at Indiana University. He is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a nonprofit “free fruit for all food justice and joy project.” You can find more about his writing and his work at Rossgay.net.

In 2016 Gay wrote a poem, “A Small Needful Fact,” that points out the seemingly important fact that Eric Garner worked in a parks and rec horticultural department and was responsible in some way for growing plants — plants that make it possible for us to breathe.

“Perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which ... like being pleasant to touch and smell, like converting sunlight into food, like making it easier for us to breathe.”

If you have any Wrenshall news to share, email or call Annie at [email protected] or 218-310-4703.