An Unplanned Harvest

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shnarkle

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Nov 10, 2013
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The town was small and close knit. Everyone cared about each other, and when someone was sick or acted strange, everyone wanted to help. Everyone was important, so much so that it seemed as if everyone had become absorbed into the town itself; the town, and everyone in it were all an integral and indispensable part of this individual organism.

There was a farmer just west of town who farmed the same ground his father as well as his grandfather before him. The land had been in the same family's hands longer than anyone could remember, and they had all been excellent farmers. They all loved to farm. They farmed corn, wheat, soybeans, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce. The latest generation even grew flowers sometimes which seemed a little odd at first, but no one minded because they looked so nice.

Times were tough, and no one was about to complain to someone who provided so much needed food to this tight knit community. However, no one noticed just how much the farmer loved to farm until one day his zeal crossed a line. For the farmer harvesting suddenly seemed to elicit a morbid sense of post partem depression. He had spent so much time nurturing these crops to fruition and yet the very idea of what he'd produced being carted away filled him with an unbearable sense of dread.

There was a lot of work involved in harvesting, and it would require long hours in the hot sun. It was a labor of love, there would still be yet more responsibilities to deal with, and commitments to attend to. These commitments required much interaction with the community, and as he pondered his next move he began to see that his course of action would not go over well with the community at large. He wanted to somehow hold onto his beloved crops, but hoarding was not really a part of his nature.

As he was walking into the barn he noticed the sharp edges of the plow gleaming in the early morning sun. The seeds of a plan began to germinate in his mind. While what he planned seemed counterintuitive, it had a logic that made sense to him. He would plow his field that very night. He could keep his crops without hoarding, without working day after long hot sweltering day. The townspeople would not be pleased. He was not looking forward to facing their anger and judgment. He began to think of a defense.

This was his land after all. This was his property to do with as he pleased, and it pleased him to plow his field regardless of whether it was for planting seed or just before it came time to harvest. It was his decision. Private property rights were the law of the land and he was perfectly within his rights to do with his property as he saw fit. After all they weren't the ones who had to come out and do all the work required to bring all this food to market. It was really none of their business what he did with his property.

This wasn't a corporation. Unlike a corporation which could be viewed as a person, and had a responsibility to its shareholders to provide a return on their investment; he owned his land outright. He didn't owe anyone a living, and had no responsibility to feed or nurture anyone, or keep anyone alive.

He thought some more, and discovered that he had actually planted his crops a little late this year because of the unusual rains that prevented him from planting on time. The produce really wasn't of a quality that he wanted to attach his name to. It was an oversight he would have to confess as just bad planning. Because the time for sowing had been planned so badly, the harvesting was also badly timed; it was a badly planned harvest. He would do better next year. He would have a well planned harvest the next time.

At first the whole town was shocked, but after a while some began to understand that even though they thought the farmer had lost his mind, it was his property to do with as he wished. Some were incensed that anyone could agree with the farmer's rationality, and those who supported the farmer's right to do as he pleased had to backtrack a bit and point out that they would never do something like this themselves, but they supported the farmer's rights.

But what about all that good food that was wasted?", they protested. What good food? You didn't see how bad it really was. They didn't know how bad it could have been. It was his decision. He knew what the land could produce, and it just wasn't up to his high standards. After all, what if someone got sick? He could be held liable for their medical bills. He didn't want that on his conscience.

He knew that the town would protest that the crops were still viable even if he didn't have enough time for a full growing season. They would still have been able to eat the desperately needed food. Here again this wasn't his problem. They could make up any argument, and it didn't change the fact that the land was his to do with as he saw fit. They would eventually get over it. They would learn to accept the fact that a trip into the neighboring communities was going to be a part of their weekly routine, at least for the next year. They all secretly hoped this was not going to become a trend with the farmer. As time passed things settled down and returned to something approaching normal.

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He squatted down and grabbed some of the black fertile soil in his hand. He squeezed it and as it crumbled and slipped through his fingers the smell stirred something inside him that made his heart swell with emotion. He loved the land and its ability to produce so much.

As the crop grew quickly in the rich fertile soil something strange began to happen. What had appeared initially to be a significant and bountiful crop had disappeared over night. It was almost as if it had been plowed. The crop was scattered on the ground with their roots exposed yet there was no evidence of anyone or anything on the farmland; no sign of vandalism.

The farmer along with a few of the townspeople began to walk through the field to inspect the crop itself to see what they could salvage, but it was a total loss. It didn't make any sense. It was as if the ground had ejected the crop and something had caused the crop to rot during the night.

Similar events like this had happened before, but not when circumstances were so conducive to growing food. The usual problem was one of working the ground to a point where it had been so badly depleted of nutrients that it had become barren. Some speculated that the Mayan hadn't learned to plow, and their centripetal method of dropping seeds into holes poked with a stick resulted in their unexplained disappearance.

As word spread, most suspected the farmer was at it again, but upon further inspection and the farmer's own bewildered expression, it became clear that something else had happened this time. Something different, yet at the same time something all too similar. Perhaps this was one of those tipping points when morphogenetic fields reach a critical mass.

It is a somewhat well documented phenomenon, and is commonly known as "the 100th monkey". It is related anecdotally that a monkey somehow figured out that she could season her potato by dunking it in the tide pools they frequented. This behavior was eventually mimicked by her progeny and it began to catch on until one day this whole community was seasoning their potatoes in the tidal pools.

There is a tipping point where this behavior produces a quantum leap and monkeys all over the world will begin to perform this same behavior. Different civilizations also present this same phenomenon with the same stories as well as forms of art showing up on different continents.

Could it be that a tipping point of sorts had been achieved where enough land had been despoiled and destroyed that even fertile land would no longer produce? After all, a renowned liar is not believed even when they tell the truth. Could it be that in a world filled with lies, even the truth can no longer be believed?

Perhaps the earth was exercising her right to choose. Perhaps yet another tipping point had finally taken place where the exploited and abused would no longer allow this injustice. And so it went as people everywhere began to see that the land no longer would yield her increase, and they began to turn on each other blaming their neighbors for using too much water, or wasting food, or Monsanto for their frankenseed that even the pests began to find unappetizing.

As people everywhere began to panic no one noticed the premature fetus clawing through their mother's womb.