Blocked soil, stuck man

Through that first year on the acid land, I was still in a conqueror's frame of mind. If the ground resisted, I pushed; if pushing failed, I pushed harder. I treated the land as an opponent to be subdued.

Then everything collapsed. Only when there was nothing left to push against did I stop and start looking and listening: where the water ran, where the acid rose, which plants survived, where the first earthworms came back.

Acid soil is not dead. It is obstructed. And the way to treat it is not to force it along — forcing ruins it. You open it up slowly, in the right order, and then you wait. People are the same.