Wrenshall News: Change is in the air this fall

By the time this paper hits your mailbox, we will have had one partial week of school under our belts. We will have either had a hard frost or we will have been given another week of needed growth for our final shares of tomatoes and peppers.

By the time you read this column our family will have established a new schedule and know where we are going on each day and who will pick up whom and what to pack for lunch. We will know how much space the fall cabbage will need in the root cellar.

For me, one of the most difficult things of the last six months has been the addition of a lot more uncertainty. Without a way to quickly test for Covid-19, we've had to adjust staffing levels on the farm and cancel and reconfigure childcare and work schedules to adjust for coughs and sneezes that turned out to be mere allergies and common ailments.

Of course I write this from a place of privilege as I still have a steady income, health care, and a warm home heading into fall. But now more than ever I realize that these things are not guaranteed. When I imagined preparing for my son's first day of kindergarten, I didn't think I would be preparing a makeshift schoolroom in my dining room or sewing kid sized masks to pack alongside his lunchbox.

When you plant a carrot in June you have no guarantee that it will be perfect when you finally pull it up.

I have relied heavily on the arts in the last six months and as I look ahead at the uncertainty of the coming harvest and the coming school year I turn to one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson:

In this short Life that only lasts an hour

How much - how little -

is within our power

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