Paying Attention to the Quiet Work
What we noticed last week across maple syrup bushes, pastures, and farms
Last week was a reminder that most farms appear calm and serene, but are far more complex once you look behind the scenes. The work shows up in daily tasks like checking maple syrup vacuum pressure, watching grass height on pasture, and spending time with cattle. Over time, you start to notice the small tells that shape the most important decision of the day or even the week. It becomes a systems way of thinking, responding to real-time conditions while trying to leave the land better than you found it.
Here’s what we were paying attention to last week, in case you missed it.
Last Week on YouTube
Bears, Broken Lines, and Vacuum Leaks: Inside a Real-World Maple Syrup Farm
What we noticed was how maple syrup production has shifted away from the tap itself and toward managing pressure, flow, and miles of tubing spread across uneven forest terrain. Jacob Powsner walked us through how a single air leak can quietly reduce yield from trees more than a mile away, reframing sugaring as ongoing systems maintenance rather than seasonal harvest.
Last Week on Substack
Why I Started The Regenaissance
Ryan shares how The Regenaissance began, starting with a personal attempt to heal through better food choices. Along the way, it raised a deeper question about what was missing, not just nutritionally, but relationally. Much of the work since has been about closing that gap by spending time with the people who grow, raise, and steward food across the country.
Walking the Ground at Rucker Farms
When you slow down enough to notice soil, animals, and decisions at the scale they actually operate. We spend the day at Rucker Farm with Garrett, walking fields, following animals, and letting the land explain what’s happening.
Adaptive Grazing on the Spectrum
Adaptive Multi-Paddock Grazing (AMP) is a term that shows up often in regenerative agriculture conversations, but it can mean different things on different farms. We looked at a range of grazing patterns we’ve seen in practice, without prescriptions or rankings, just on-the-ground observations of how producers are adapting to their own land and conditions.
Last Week On Instagram
A quiet moment in Western Colorado as barrels are prepared and wine is finished at Peony Lane. Ben Justman walking through the final decisions before wine goes into storage. It was a reminder that “natural” winemaking still involves constant judgment calls and responsibility
→ See the final steps in his wine making process
Centralization shapes nearly every part of our food system, from who controls processing to who carries the risk. It’s made life harder for farmers and ranchers while leaving consumers further removed from how food is actually produced.
The 1980s farm crisis reshaped rural America in ways that still linger. As land values collapsed and foreclosures spread, entire communities felt futures quietly disappear. Jr Burdick shared what it was like to witness this as a kid, watching classmates who planned to work the land full time suddenly pulled in different directions.