Fleeting beauty.
It’s got to come to an end at some point. Beauty is fleeting.
Fleeting is defined as an adjective “lasting for a very short time.”
There is beauty in enduring artwork. You know, the kind you see in museums that stands the test of time and is unchanged.
There is beauty in an incredible meal. You savor and enjoy, sometimes slowing down to prolong the experience, but it eventually ends.
There is beauty in youth as understood in youth, but there is beauty in growing older and wiser as well. That beauty isn’t seen until you yourself begin the process of aging.
There is also the beauty of moments in time. Social media attempts to capture these fleeting moments in pictures. Think about it: Social media couldn’t have existed until the camera became portable and excellent.
There is beauty in experience. No matter how good the camera, you cannot experience a night sky through a lens; you cannot write about a delicious meal and truly capture everything in a moment.
You must experience it.
That is what we are all about. Experience. We plant fruits & flowers, make mazes & slides, build barns & bake pies that you have to experience first-hand to understand fully.
Until you pull a peach from the tree and bite into it while standing in the orchard with juice running down your arm and your taste receptors explode… You don’t really know about peaches.
Until you stand in a vast field of blooming sunflowers with colors dazzling your optic nerves in new, unfamiliar patterns… You haven’t really seen it.
Until you sip an icy, blueberry-wine-spike, fresh-squeezed lemonade as the sun moves slowly through the western sky, in the shade of the tent, as Nick plays acoustic music, as you look around for miles in every direction, safe and relaxed in the countryside, as conversations bubble gently around… You can’t capture that in a tweet.
You have to be here. Being here, really being here, out on the farm is an experience.
The sunflower festival is a unique experience unto itself, but it, too, is fleeting. Only Friday, Saturday & Sunday remain, then like a blossom fully matured, it’s gone until next year.
Come. Explore. Harvest. Enjoy. Eat. Be. Relax.
Take as many pictures as you can, and know that they will capture only a fraction of the experience you’ll soak up while you’re here.
See you soon for the final weekend of sunflowers, a great peach-picking weekend, and a wonderfully relaxing experience.
Farmer Hugh
