Farmers First: What is the nature of time?

Happy New Year, farm family!

As I type these words, I find myself straddling the space-time continuum in a way that I don’t often do.

The change from one year to another has heightened my awareness of both the nature and passage of time.

What is the nature of time?

In my writing present, it is still 2025. Christmas is exactly one week away. The new year, two.

In your reading present, it is 2026. Christmas is past. The Times Square ball has dropped and been put away for another year. Life goes on.

Over two weeks of living, loving, gaining and losing stand between my writing and your reading. And yet, we both experience these words as now.

Even as they are being written, these words are the product of a past reality, the experience of a present reality and the basis for a present reality. I take it as a validation of Einstein’s law of relativity that the recorded word simultaneously exists in the past, present and future.

The same applies to our farm lives. The very land we till, the animals we feed, the seeds we plant and the air we breathe is rooted in a past reality that influences how we farm in our present and how others will be able to farm in the future.

Let that sink in for a moment. How does that look in real life?

Here’s an example: My great-great-grandfather had a passion for improving fields. The rocks he took from our fields became the foundation for the heifer barn that was my childhood playground. Those fields, once suitable only for apple trees, now grow small vegetable crops.

That passion for rock removal lives on in my dad. Set him at a field of boulders with an excavator and watch out! You’ll have tillable land in no time.

I’m sure you have examples of your own. Perhaps you’re a first-generation farmer or a renter. The past is still very much present … and very much involved in your future.

How much time do we have?

For many farmers, talking about time can bring a sense of anxiety. I talk with some every day who feel like there’s never enough time for all the things they need and want to do.

This reflects an understanding of the world in which farmers face a world of limited time and unlimited responsibilities. No wonder we feel the need to get up earlier, stay up later and work harder in between.

I would like to propose a different construct. Time is neither static nor finite. It flows, expands and adapts to the needs of different people in different places at different – or times.

I can hear someone now: “Good grief! There are 24 hours in a day. Period. No amount of fancy talk is going to change that.”

Yes. And no. Our atomic clocks may give us 24 hours, but we determine whether those 24 hours are enough or not.

A couple of old sayings illustrate this belief. One was from my great-grandmother: “The faster I go, the behinder I get.” The other is surprisingly similar: “Less haste; more speed.”

I use the latter with my children when the school bus is due, they don’t have their bookbags and they can’t find their shoes. The reason? The more they panic, the less efficient they are – and the more likely they are to miss the bus.

In a beautiful irony, the act of slowing down actually helps you finish more things faster. We truly have the ability to expand time to meet our needs.

Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. I often ask people to give me short deadlines for projects because “my projects expand to fill the available time,” especially if a task is emotionally charged or unfamiliar.

For example, my ex installed a beautiful tile heat shield behind our woodstove. Time passed. We adopted pets, buried pets, bore two children and bid farewell to our marriage. Do you think we ever grouted the tile? Nope. The perfectly tinted grout is actually sitting in my basement.

A job that would take at most an hour has taken 16 years. Talk about expanding to fill available time!

How can we make more time?

If you’ve recognized yourself in some of these stories, you may be wondering how to start making more time for you, your family and your farm. Here are a few tips that have worked for me:

• Decide what matters. Make a quick list of the things that are most important to you. Focus on the people and activities that make you feel happy and/or purposeful.

• Do a time audit. Take an honest look at how you currently spend your time. This is especially important for those of us with a tendency towards “time blindness” – the ability to completely lose track of time when engaged in pleasurable activities.

• Design a schedule. Compare your list of what matters with your time audit. Are the things you care about in your schedule? If not, put them in. Are you spending time on things that really don’t matter? Dump them.

How are you making time work for you – or not? I’d love to hear from you!

Connect with me at kcastrataro@pen-light.org, penlightfarmers.com or Pen Light LLC on YouTube.

It’s your time to grow!