Poolesville Veterinary
Clinic, LLC
Dr.’s Peter Eeg,
Ashley Young,
Marianne Van Doorn
and the entire staff are
dedicated to providing
the highest quality
veterinary care with
a personal touch.
Hours of Operation
Monday through Friday 7:30am - 7:00pm
Saturday 8:00am - 3:00pm • Closed Sunday
19621 Fisher Ave • Poolesville MD 20837
P: 301-972-7705 • F: 301-972-7706
[email protected]
www.poolesvilleveterinaryclinic.com
10
plenty I autumn harvest 2019
digital map layer, but a system deeply rooted
in the ecological story of the place where we
farm, the natural world stitched through it at
every turn.
For those of us who are so connected to
the land that we live in those almost unaware of
their existence, like fish in water, autumn some-
times surprises us as a time when non-farmers
also wake up to their connection with the
harvest season. Pumpkins appear on doorsteps.
Apple picking photos fill social media feeds.
These days, as we face an imminent cli-
mate crisis born of our broken connection to
the natural world, the moments in which our
larger culture swings closer to the land feel
more significant than ever. Harvest can be a
time to re-establish the connection with our
place, to rebuild an intimacy with our natural
surroundings that nourishes us at many levels.
If summer is the time for travel far from
home, autumn may be the time for travel that
re-introduces home—a walk at the edge of a
farm field where the asters bloom and the last
butterflies of the season visit the milkweed, or
an afternoon in an orchard surrounded by the
perfume of apples. A meal made completely
from ingredients purchased on a driving tour
of local farms, accompanied by some local wine
or cider. A slow trip over a one-lane bridge
with a stream tumbling underneath and golden
sycamore leaves overhead. Reconnecting with
our home place may be a key to healing our ap-
proach to agriculture, and to our environment
as a whole.
“When geography becomes virtual / and
developers urbanize the earth,” as the poet
John O’Donohue wrote, how lucky we are in
the Agricultural Reserve to have a place where
the “fields become presences,” the “precious
threshold where / the rhythm of nature with its
serene pulse / and sublime patience restores
our minds.”
Amanda Cather owns and operates Plow and Stars
Farm in Poolesville, Maryland with her husband
Mark and their children. She grew up in St. Mary’s
County, Maryland, and farmed in Massachusetts
and Colorado before being lucky enough to return to
the Agricultural Reserve to start Plow and Stars.