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Anticipation is a big piece of farming. From experience we know that most things behave according to an established set of rules, whether or not we understand them, and we anticipate predictable outcomes when two or more of these things interact. A mug of steaming hot coffee will usually sit on a table and stay there until I reach for it. This despite the fact that quantum physicists are only able to identify five percent of that coffee cup as having actual mass, the other 95 percent being empty space and forces that hold it together or keep it from flying off the table and providing a hilarious example of the zeroth (yes, it exists), first and second laws of thermodynamics by pouring itself into my lap. Kids, and grown men, are a great demonstration of how non-native this skill is. Take that same coffee cup in the employ of a small child and you understand the inevitability of the sippy cup and hair loss in male parents. With luck inanimate objects with no moving parts provide training wheels for learning how the physical world works. Gradually we work our way up to dealing with inanimate things completely beyond our control like the weather. Ultimately, in a fit of optimism based on earlier successes with coffee cups and dressing appropriately, some of us marry and expect that we can predict what is going to happen next. Since I provide Barb with lots of writing material about how my irrational optimism and foray into farming has flummoxed her ability to predict anything in this relationship, I will leave the really deep thinking to her and will focus in this essay on experience with inanimate objects with moving parts. .