The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - Just when you really need it: The Zone

Episode Date: December 13, 2016

A new season of The Ruminant Podcast begins in January 2017. For now, I hope you enjoy this ode to gettin'er done around the farm.

I'm an organized farmer, so I always have a pretty good idea of what I need to get done in any given time frame. An hour, a day, a week, a month. This is crucial, because the first step in being efficient is a strong sense of how efficient you need to be. And yet, on my farm, there are days, or parts of days, where my productivity is achingly slow. I can't predict when this is about to happen. These periods seem to be partly based on factors within my control, how much I've slept, whether I'm sufficiently caffeinated, but sometimes it also feels like I don't have a say in the matter at all. Like somewhere, someone rolled some dice that determined it will take me four trips to the shed to remember all

the tools I need for a job, and that, in general, for the next three hours, I will suck at farming. These lapses often lead to despair, but never to ruin. This is because they always seem to get balanced out by countervailing occurrences of super productivity. I call these occurrences the zone. One appearance of the zone happened on a Sunday evening last June, when I was desperate to get my weekly planting of 4,500 row feet of baby greens in the ground. Conditions were perfect, there were few distractions around, the temperature was cool, and the sun was casting that pre-dusk light that photographers refer to as the golden hour. And I had some good music in my ears. More on which in a second. One characteristic of the

zone is that I often don't know it has arrived until I'm a few minutes into it. I'm out doing something I've done a hundred times before, and suddenly I become aware that I'm not just doing this job, I'm destroying it. Like stratospheric efficiency. In this case, I became aware I was in the zone just as Orion, an instrumental track on Metallica's 1986 album Master of Puppets, began its long building introduction in my headphones, which is the perfect song for the zone, or my version of it, anyway. The best part of being in the zone, by the way, is when you know it's happening. Sometimes you don't, but when you do, it's a feeling of euphoria. You feel like the best farmer in the world. You feel like you could do anything, like you're't. But when you do, it's a feeling of euphoria. You feel like the best farmer in the

world. You feel like you could do anything. Like you're invincible. You're out there with your Jang JP one-row seeder and 15 kinds of seeds and 90 rows to plant. And for a brief period, you've got sprinter's legs and a surgeon's hands. It's NBA Jam and you're on fire. and a surgeon's hands. It's NBA Jam, and you're on fire. You're in beast mode. You, my friend, to quote a 1999 John Cusack movie of the same name, are pushing Tim. So So here's a toast to The Zone,

which always seems to show up just when I think I'm screwed, and to Metallica for providing the soundtrack. That last toast seems especially important, since Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich can be litigious about copyright infringement. So hey, if you decide you need to seek out Master of Puppets after hearing this, which is a really great album by the way, maybe try to find a legal copy, just so Lars doesn't get too upset with me. And happy farming. May the zone come your way just when you need it. For the Ruminant Podcast, I'm Jordan Marr. A new season of the Ruminant Podcast begins in January. In in the meantime there's almost 100

episodes in the back catalog that you can check out the ruminant.ca or your favorite podcasting app talk to you in january everybody