It’s a male thing right, spreading the seed. Humans are a farming species, so what can I say?

The farmer gazes across his lovingly sown field, filled with a sense of awe and childish excitement. The moment has come, the moment at which all the painstaking, backbreaking and of course sweaty work will pay off.

Harvesting is obviously the most rewarding aspect of modern agricultural practices, however, he made sure not to rush and to take care with the stages before. He knows the best way to begin is with a slow, and often gentle, sewing method. He recognizes the importance of preparation and usage of the correct tools. Having made sure that every corner of the field was correctly tended to, and that the timing was just right to ensure temperatures would be suitable for successful germination. Every farmer knows that. Timing is everything.

Across the barnyard a rival agriculturalist peeks over the tops of his sweet corn, jealously admiring the beauty of his handiwork. "How could such a simple man yield such beautiful crops?" the rival asks himself. "And those furrows!”

The farmer reached down to touch the moist soil upon which he has devoted so much of his life. Strangely, it reminded him of his mother. Overcome by a growing fire deep within his chest, he reached deeper into the warm earth. Everything escaped him. The dirt between his fingers felt like a silk glove. Until finally he knew what moment he was reaching. The fire now roaring like a storm at sea. The climax of everything he had ever dreamed of was coming. And then he felt it....

A potato

Pulling it out from the cavern of his dreams into the light, he held it up into the evening sun beams and let out a huge roar "OHHHHHH GOD YEAAAA!, I LOVE POTATOES". He vigorously shook his pitchfork free from the soft loam. Looking out across the field, he knew he didn't have much time before the sun went down. And so in an animistic frenzy, he entered the soil, again and again, and again, in and out, over and over, so much so that pains began to consume his body, but it wouldn't stop him. He was blind by the calling of those starchy tubers.

His blindness, albeit frenzied, was not without its lucidity. He knew what the earth craved; the harvest. Waiting patiently every year for his tender fingers to take what was his. The ground began to shake uncontrollably, the farmer's disturbances were causing quakes to its very core.

Birds began to cry, the wind picked up, and all the hairs on a nearby family of mice stood to attention as if they were antenna receiving whispers of truth from God herself. And then it passed until all that was felt was a static tension in the cool damp air.

And so there he lay on his patch in the dying light of that fateful autumn evening. Breathing heavily, holding himself, covered in potatoes. He was exhausted. But he was already thinking about what crops to plant next year. Maybe he could try something new, he’d only ever tried monoculture after all. There’s a whole world of horticultural fluidity out there. “Permaculture maybe, or is that just for new-age, hippie types?” He cogitated. With the passing of the last light, went his consciousness as he slipped into the deepest of sleeps, embraced by the trampled foliage surrounding him.

He dreamt of rhubarb and broad beans.