Beautiful Chaos: Why My ADHD Brain Thrives on This Farm
Come September, every squirrel on this farm goes into overdrive. Including the one writing this email.
So... hear me out. Running a regenerative farm with ADHD might actually be a superpower in disguise.
Back in college, when I was diagnosed with ADHD, I wondered how I'd ever find work that matched how my brain operates. Twenty years later, I've realized regenerative farming was waiting for me all along.
This summer was proof - a beautiful mess of interconnected projects. Laying water lines on the new farm next door, hauling what I guess to be 50 tons of gigantic rock to build a road that'll outlast my grandkids, and welcoming our first flock of sheep (who immediately established that they're smarter than I gave them credit for).
People think farming means doing the same chores every day until you die of boredom. But regenerative farming? It rewards brains that see connections everywhere. When I bounce from checking our experimental native grasses (big bluestem and indiangrass - fingers crossed they actually take) to discussing soil carbon with bourbon distillery folks in Kentucky to teaching Sam how to weld without burning the barn down - I'm not scattered. I'm doing what my brain does naturally - exploring how twelve different things connect and influence each other.
But here's the thing - half the problems you need to solve to make regenerative farming work aren't even on your farm. They're at the processor, the market, the policy level. So this summer I went looking for others tackling those bigger problems. Montana ranchers building their own processing facilities. Kansas City processors who still give a damn about animal welfare. Missouri Amish farmers who've kept traditional systems alive while the rest of us chased efficiency. Turns out we're all solving different parts of the same puzzle.
Back home, the beautiful chaos continued. I grew enough tomatoes to make Andrea question my sanity, then she turned them into 70 jars of pure summer. New calves tested every inch of fence like tiny escape artists. Those native warm-season grasses we planted? We're hoping they'll sink roots deep and sequester carbon, but honestly, we're still in the "let's see what happens" phase.
Back home, the beautiful chaos continued. I grew enough tomatoes to make Andrea question my sanity, then she turned them into 70 jars of pure summer. New calves tested every inch of fence like tiny escape artists. Those native warm-season grasses we planted? We're hoping they'll sink roots deep and sequester carbon, but honestly, we're still in the "let's see what happens" phase.
Here on the farm, everything is connected and working together in an elaborate dance.
And this is exactly why I love farming: the beautiful complexity of it all.
While industrial ag runs the same soul-crushing playbook year after year, we're choreographing this elaborate dance across the land. Sheep mow pastures to the perfect height for chickens. Chickens scratch and fertilize, setting up next year's grasses. Those grasses feed the cattle. Pigs work the forest edges in their own rotation.
Will Harris has this great way of explaining it: nature is complex, not complicated. Each piece affects every other piece in ways that would drive a linear thinker crazy. But my brain? It thrives on tracking these endless connections.
Will Harris has this great way of explaining it: nature is complex, not complicated. Each piece affects every other piece in ways that would drive a linear thinker crazy. But my brain? It thrives on tracking these endless connections.
My physics training taught me to see patterns. My ADHD means I can't ignore them. Andrea's put up with my pinball brain for twenty years - I've tried to get better at focusing, really. But turns out my scattered brain might make me a better regenerative farmer.
Your farmer,
Cody
Cody