The call came in. Joe was on the line and I immediately had but one question, "How are the peppers?" His reply rang hollow in my ear. "They're gone. All of them." And so we learned our first lesson of life and death at the farm this year. A tragic deep freeze hit us two evenings ago, and with it went our experimental row of peppers. It is my hope that such phenomenons are behind us, but I must remind myself that the true spirit of a farmer comes in his ability to be resilient in the face of nature, and to embrace that which gives life as that which also takes it away. Before I go to the farm to visit my dearly departed, I leave you with this quote, reminding us that all things truly are relative:

"Rocks fall and structures come down as a result of gravity, but at the atomic and molecular level, gravity is so weak that standard calculations ignore it." --Stephen Jay Gould