It is always important to make a good first impression.

In the mid-1990s, I met my best friend and partner while living on a ramshackle old farm that the locals called the “ruins”. This farm needed all manner of chores to keep it from falling down, from daily irrigation to constant fixing.

I was careful when I first got to know my new friend not to display my typical hurry up and relax attitude. She was a person of refinement and grace, which I did my best to respect in all matters. She had been dropped into a homespun life where spring and fall were compressed into frenetic weeks of planting and harvest. Life was a race against the onslaught of nature, who was bent on freezing our crops and pelting us with hell and high water.  Read on →