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Growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, I was introduced to the idea of "summerfallowing." The word, I discovered, has even made it into an online "Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan" (http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/summerfallow.html). To "summerfallow" a field meant to let it lie unseeded for a growing season. The land was tilled to aerate the soil, but nothing was planted. In drier areas of the province, fields were summerfallowed every other year, helping the soil to retain moisture, while also releasing nutrients from organic matter in the soil, reducing the need for fertilizer. While this practice has been reduced with the creation of better fertilizers as well as more recent concerns about long term soil erosion, it is still practiced to a smaller degree. For those who do practice it, they do so knowing they are going to sacrifice any income from that field that year, hoping for a better crop in the next.
New years signify new beginnings. Perhaps the year that just ended was a tough one. Perhaps there were hardships physically, financially, or spiritually. Perhaps it's good to remember, as this passage reminds us, there are times for everything, even a time for "summerfallowing."
New years signify new beginnings. Perhaps the year that just ended was a tough one. Perhaps there were hardships physically, financially, or spiritually. Perhaps it's good to remember, as this passage reminds us, there are times for everything, even a time for "summerfallowing."
