Fallow - the earth takes a break

Fallow - the earth takes a break 

Fallow is Nature's process to give the land the needed rest after harvest. It usually jibes with summer when there is little or no rain at all, when the sun bears on it scorching grass and other annual plants, and breaking the life cycle of weeds, insect pests, and disease pathogens. It opens the soil for air to circulate, enhancing its tilth for easier cultivation and better water absorption and retention come rainy season. 

Fallow is rest, it is a break, it is a bridge to the next crop, the same way childbirth is spaced properly and safely,  children in school take a vacation, so with workers from their job, executives on leave from their swivel chair for the beach, animals aestivate to save energy, seeds and spores lie dormant getting ready to spring to life.

Fallow is a tool of evolution by elimination and by cooperation.  To us humans,  it tells us to slow down, it gathers us as a family and community. 

Dr Abe V Rotor

The earth in summer

Lifeless it seems scorched in the summer sun,
     it cracks, it heaves, it sighs;
the earth fallows, after the harvest is done.
     it stirs, it talks, it cries.  

And the world is still, nothing moves around,
     abandoned and alone,
the herons and the maya to faraway bound,
     frogs are still as stone. 

Then they croak, herald the habagat season,
     and the end of strife,
the earth wakes to the rain for good reason:
     rebirth, the cycle of life.  ~

Germinating seeds makes the end of fallow. (Internet photo)