What grew while I wasn't looking.

As I worked, things were happening without me.

All spring I have been tending to a plan I made months ago. Seeding, planting, mowing; the list goes on to make sure the plan unfolds just right. Every day when I look at the to-dos, I think: at least I get to be outside. The outside isn’t for the faint of heart, but a big part of me sees it as home now, and homes need to be cared for.

I want to do right by the vision we have for Little Bend. The follow-through looks like being consumed by work. As early as I can get up, as late as sundown. No stop.

The cover crop.

Without my attention, the rye and vetch plot had been quietly growing; adding to the farm in ways I hadn’t noticed — until a couple of weeks ago. I was too busy working around it to see it maturing.

As soon as I noticed, I became obsessed. All of a sudden it was here so fully: nearly six feet tall, blue-green grain waving and glittering in the field. The cover crop became the only thing in the field I could be proud of.

Mind you, I planned for it. But it wasn’t something I was trying to harvest or sell. I expected almost nothing from it. I intended it to act in service of the soil’s health.

Turns out, the rye served me even more than the soil.

It shaped my days. I would stand in it, feel the wind, run my hand through it, and then start my chores. When I stopped to be with the cover crop, I started to see what a presence it was — for me and for the wildlife.

It was the pause.

The habit that stayed.

We terminated the cover crop a week or so ago. The habit of pausing stuck around.

Now I make time to witness what is happening outside of my work in the field. Foxes bringing their kits to play in the open field. Frogs singing late into the night. The first lightning bugs of the year. Birds nesting in the hollows of the tree line.

This little corner of the world is bountiful. The practice of pausing is reminding me that growing flowers is the vehicle to get me out here to see.