Farm Friday, December 2nd, 2022
Snow and cold hit the farm
This week flew by. Students arrived on Monday and we have been doing all the “first-week” stuff to get them oriented and engaged in the work. Highlights for me were installing the new pasture fence during a snowstorm on Tuesday and taking a hike yesterday to see “animal signs” in the fresh snow. Also, I have been enjoying having people around who are as into the World Cup as I am.
It was a big week for me on Medium.
I finished my RaWBC essay about Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. She has given me a lot to think about. I also published my monthly genealogy column, which focused on how race affects access to documents in family research. These essays put me over the top, giving me my first ever listing as a “top writer” in Racism on Medium. I don’t know how to feel about this because as a white person, I have no experience being the subject of racism. I suppose understanding race is also about seeing what it means to be white within society, and I do know something about that.
This week, I also tried out my idea of writing one-minute essays about climate change. I dropped three “Climate Minute” essays this week. It is revealing to have to stick to 200 words or less because I find myself ruthlessly cutting my first drafts. I keep trimming excess verbiage, and I find the essays get better each time. If this process is so helpful for these mini-essays, what does that say about my longer pieces, where I don’t edit as much? Maybe less is more?
The #RaWBC book for December is Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well. Essays are due on or after December 28th.
