Daily life

Normally if I ask someone in an email “how’s it going” they respond that they are exceedingly busy and overworked and behind on their projects, etc etc. But one friend writes the following:
“we moved cows from one pasture to the next… I am going to plant june berries underneath the aspen trees…we lost our vegetables to frost last night…” and so on.

How is it that people develop these skills? Do you read books on herding cows and then just do it? What are june berries anyway? And what place in continental US has frost in June? Does it hurt the june berries?

It struck me how during the majority of my days I move within a five mile radius of my home, my actions are limited to the same ones, day in and day out and they do not include moving cattle from one pasture to another. Just as I start to feel competently self-sufficient, I am reminded that I’ve given up on growing my own vegetables because I know the local farmers do it better and I pick up few new skills from season to season.

Thank goodness we have travel to take us out of the ordinary. Daily life can leave you with a rigid tunnel vision and atrophied observational skills, to say nothing of stagnant coping abilities.