Life Lessons from the Farm Words & Photos by Keaton Smith '21
L
istening to Jay Leshinsky talk about the Knoll is like listening to a philosopher contemplating mortality. The garden is a sacred space providing quasi-religious experiences. Preparing to interview Leshinsky—the former Knoll manager—I expected to talk science: facts, numbers, data. Instead, I found myself in Middlebury’s café nearly moved to tears by Leshinsky’s poetic ponderings. “It’s birth into life into death, and death feeds the life,” Leshinsky muses, “that’s the way it goes.” Previously, I had only thought about gardens in summer-time: luscious, bright and bursting with colors. But for the workers at the Knoll, fall, winter and spring are integral to the life-cycle. Winter is the resting period. Spring is the birth, and, as Leshinsky puts it, a “burst into this huge expansion of energy and growth.” Then, fall arrives; the days grow shorter, and the plants propagate “because they know they’re going to die.” I was struck by the idea of confronting death fearlessly. Coming to terms with mortality is, of course, part of being human. In my philosophy classes at Middlebury, we read texts in which long-gone philosophers grapple with ideas of death; the 16th-century French philosopher Montaigne even writes that “to study philosophy is to learn to die.”
We, as humans, are often paralyzed by the fear of death. In contrast, these plants seem resolute as they prepare—by procreating—for their inevitable death. While we are handicapped by narcissism, unable to imagine a world without us at the center, plants recognize the bigger picture. My chat with Leshinsky led to a meeting with the current farm manager, Megan Brakeley, who helped me understand more about the critical role which winter plays. As the icy January wind whipped by the windows, I asked Brakeley to explain what was happening at the Knoll that very minute. “Blessedly little is happening,” Brakeley grinned. “Voles are burrowing . . . mice are nesting in every available crevice, and snakes are hidden under the tarps.” Throughout the cold winter months, the animals take refuge. Brakeley sees a power in this time of year; the only thing to do is “think about the garden and all the life that will blossom for five sweet, sweet months.” She picks out seeds and dreams of the kale, the flowers and the grapes to come. She also takes a break; the wintertime provides “physical constraints” which, Brakeley believes, “help us frame and understand our ways of being.”
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