So Proud
March 14th, 2012 § 12 Comments
Above photo taken by Penny (as are most on this blog), just after the boys and I had finished processing our lambs.
This morning, Fin, who is 10, was reading on the couch. “Papa,” he called to me (I was in the kitchen, making some sort of mess), “what’s a Big Mac?”
This reminded me of a experience Penny had, back when Fin was 5. I’ve mentioned it before, but it was a long time ago, back when there were about 3 people reading this blog. She’d taken the boys to a water sports store to purchase a used kayak. At the store, they had a TV playing kayaking videos. Fin was transfixed, and called out to Penny: “Mama, come over here. Look at this box! It has pictures and sound!”
One of the beauties of homeschooling your kids in a rural community is that you have a tremendous degree of choice regarding what and what not to expose them to. Once in a while (although thankfully, not as often as you might think), someone will hear that we homeschool and say something brilliant like: “Aren’t you worried about socialization?” To which I can only answer: “Damn straight. That’s why we keep them at home.”
It’s a bit snarky (but then, I’ve been accused of worse), to be sure. Still, it’s the truth, or at least part of the truth. Because if, at the age of 5, my kid doesn’t know what a TV looks like, that’s just fine with me. If, at the age of 10, the words “Big Mac” are meaningless to him, I’m downright ecstatic. It could be said that this ignorance will all but ensure that my boys remain out-of-step with contemporary American society. Perhaps, perhaps.
But then I think about all the things they do know: How to identify practically every species of tree, bird, and bush in our forest. How to build a fire, to milk a cow, to field dress a deer. How to plant a garden, handle a splitting maul, use the chop saw. And I can’t help but think that it’s contemporary American society that’s out of step with them.
Where the Rubber Hits the Roof
March 13th, 2012 § 7 Comments
So let’s say you’re over to Broadturn Farm in Scarborough, Maine for a work project.
And let’s say you’re duffing around and you find a pair of chicken-shit-covered-but-in-generally-excellent-condition 16.9 x 28 tractor tires, which just happens to be the size you need to replace the not-in-generally-excellent condition treads on your machine.
Furthermore, imagine that the owners of said tires are willing to let them go at a very reasonable price. Not only that, they will trust you to send payment by mail, and loan you a pair of ratchet straps. Do farmers rock, or what?
All of which is say, imagine me driving three-hours home with these tires atop the roof of our “new” Subaru. The shit-eating grin I got from the fella operating the skidder at the side of Route 113 was all I needed to confirm I’d made the right decision. That, and the fact that I passed three cops, and none of them pulled me over.
The ol’ ‘Ru did feel a tad top-heavy, I must admit.
Crazy Train
March 7th, 2012 § 2 Comments
Along with Julia Shipley, Amanda Soule, and Jason Miller, I’ll be at the Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick this Sunday starting at 1:00. Why for? To celebrate the launch of Taproot, of course.
There will be an open bar, exotic dancers, and oodles of blow, and I will be performing solo acoustic versions of Freebird and Crazy Train.
Either that, or Julia and I will do a short reading, and we can all hang out and eat some tasty snacks.
Hope ya’ll can make it.
Biased
March 5th, 2012 § 7 Comments
Down in M’s barn last night, we stood only a few feet from the hind end of one of his cows as it dripped afterbirth into the gutter. He’d gotten a heifer out of her, and this seemed to put him in a good mood; when I’d seen him earlier in the day, he’d told me he was expecting a bull calf. “She’s 11 days late,” he said, rather irritably. “Probably another bull.” According to M, late calves are most often bulls. I have no idea if there’s any scientific basis for this, but the guy’s been farming for something like six decades, so who am I to argue?
Anyway, we were talking about the state of things today. This being a frequent topic of conversation for us. Specifically, we were talking about what seems to be an epidemic of depression and general dissatisfaction with life in twenty-first century American society, how people are unable to extract themselves from the ruts in which they increasingly seem to find themselves entrenched. M told me how, shortly before he was born, his mother had given birth to a baby girl. The girl (he didn’t tell me her name) died four months later, of pneumonia. “My father told my mother she had two months to grieve, and then it was time to get back to it,” M said. “So that’s what she did.”
I was a bit taken aback: Two months? To grieve your dead baby daughter? But of course the times were different; they demanded able hands, a strong back, and the presence of mind to make use of both. M’s parents owned a dairy farm. It was the early 40′s, or thereabouts. There would be no long, drawn out period of depression or grieving, because there could be no long, drawn-out period of depression or grieving.
I thought about this in the context of my own life, how every so often I’ll wake up in a foul mood, or feeling unmoored for reasons that elude me. And how it is that my morning rounds to the animals never – and I mean never – fail to bring me around. Sometimes I don’t even realize it until later; I’ll carry my pissy mood through chores, and perhaps even into breakfast, wishing like all get out that I didn’t have to do chores on just this one day. But of course, that’s not an option and inevitably, at some point shortly thereafter, something shifts, and I find myself whistling, or singing under my breath, or simply feeling lighter. Maybe it’s the physicality of our choretime ritual: Throwing hay, hauling water, shoveling snow. A little sweat on the brow, the stretching and flexing of muscles in ways so familiar they have become nothing short of ritual. Or maybe it’s the animals themselves: How can you be in a bad mood when you have so many loyal friends depending on you for their survival? Probably, it’s some of both, coupled with the humbling recognition that I am incredibly privileged to begin my days in such a manner.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never been truly depressed the way some people get depressed, so it’d be presumptuous of me to suggest that chores are an antidote to the epidemic of emotional malaise M and I were talking about. Yet I can’t help but wonder: If we still inhabited a society where people had something real to grab hold of each and every day, something that needed them to be there without fail, even in moments of frailty and sadness, if everyone could just begin their day by cutting the twine on a bale of hay and breathing the scent of summer, would we not be better off?
Yeah, I know, I’m biased. But I’m putting all my chips on my faith that we sure as hell would.
Finally
March 2nd, 2012 § 3 Comments
Finally, it feels like winter: Two storms in the past week have transformed the landscape. What was crust and scratch is now fluff and hush and despite it being colder than we’ve become accustomed to this winter, it feels warmer. Not physically warmer, but somehow emotionally warmer, as if after being set on edge by the atypical conditions, we can finally relax. I’d thought I was ready for the season to be over, but the snow reminds me of how much I missed “real” winter.
The eve of the second storm, two nights ago, Rye and I slept out in the debris shelter he made with his friend and mentor, Erik. We skied down through the woods just as the light was going glowery and the snow was beginning to filter down in widely-spaced flakes. We built a fire of birch bark and deadfall, skied a little more, and then snuggled in to sleep through the storm. I slept especially soundly, as I always do outdoors, and when we awoke in the morning, everything was soft and white and I felt more energized that I had in weeks.
The snow adds to our daily chores, but this winter has been so dry, it feels like a novelty. There is the driveway to be plowed, which is great fun. Slightly less entertaining are are solar panels that must be swept clear, so they might harvest every precious electron. The batteries that store our modest supply of electricity are terminally ill and desperately needing replacement; this is a $3500 proposition, so of course we have been procrastinating mightily. Still, it’s been good for us, forcing us to an even deeper level of awareness regarding our electricity use and generation. The briefest moment of sunshine shall not be wasted; not even a single 20-watt lightbulb can remain lit for longer than is absolutely necessary. Soon enough, it will be summer, and we can go back to our wastrel ways. You know, using three and even four kilowatt hours per day.
Still, no matter how winter-like the next month or two prove to be, the fact remains: This winter has been a fleeting, fickle thing. I know well enough that complaining about weather is both fruitless and tiresome; I have little patience for it, particularly in the hills of rural Vermont. I mean, if it’s consistent weather you want, why not just get the hell out? On the other hand, weather is an historical medium for chitchat and connection, and I’m reminded of this almost every time I stop by one of our neighbors’. It is weather that so often sparks the conversation, and while there is rarely overt complaining (these are native Vermonters, after all: They know the score), it is generally understood that the subject is to be raised only when conditions are less than optimal: Rain during first cut, warm nights during sugaring, a killing frost in May.
It is somehow comforting to me that so many in my community are so tangibly dependent on the weather for their livelihood. It is a reminder that no matter how much it might seem otherwise, we are inextricably linked to nature. We are not separate, and we never will be. To deny this truth is to deny no less than a piece of ourselves.
Hungry
February 21st, 2012 § 8 Comments
Yesterday, I did not eat. It was an experiment, really, spurred by a fantastic article in the most recent Harper’s about the history and practice of fasting. Even if you maintain zero interest in gustatory abstinence, you should read it. It is written by Steve Hendricks and contains possibly the best sentence in the history of sentences: “Several years earlier, for reasons now puzzling, I had been a distance runner, but a pitiable knee injury ended all that, after which the lard came upon me.” After which the lard came upon me. I’d give up food for a week if I could write a line like that.
It wasn’t hard, really. I did get hungry, but not overwhelmingly so; by early afternoon I felt a little shaky, but it did not interfere with my work. I was able to bust out 1,000 words or so on the new book, and they might even be halfway decent (I haven’t dared look at them again, the second reading being my primary litmus test). I suspect I could quite readily have extended my fast for a day or more, although of course that’s entirely uncharted territory for me, so who knows.
Unsurprisingly, I thought a lot about food over the course of the day. But not in the way you might imagine. Oh sure, there were moments when I considered the pork chop, or even just the thick rind of cream that sticks to the sides of our separating bowl. I like to run my finger around the bowl and lap the cream off my knuckle. Sometimes, I even wash my hands first. Still, most of my food-related musing had to do with the enormous, almost overwhelming abundance we enjoy. We work hard for it, we know precisely where it comes from and what it took to get it to our plates – blood, guts, dirt, shit, and all of that – and this feels right to me. But there are times when I’m admittedly a little embarrassed simply by how much we have, the incredible diversity and sheer quantity stored in our root cellar, freezers, and pantry. Lamb, beef, pork, chickens. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. Dried apples, dried chanterelles, dried peppers. Kimchi. Butter. Maple syrup. Potatoes, squash, onions. It goes on.
My participation in my food is complete; I do not doubt that. But that does not absolve me of the obligation to consume it with reverence, and in this regard, I am sometimes lacking. I’m not sure fasting is the best way to maintain that reverence (though there’s plentiful evidence that it might be the healthiest way), but I know one thing for sure: I damn well appreciated breakfast this morning.
Taproot
February 20th, 2012 § 8 Comments
I subscribe to four magazines: Harper’s, The New Yorker, Small Farmer’s Journal, and Orion.
I like Harper’s and the New Yorker because they make me feel smart, even if the words are generally too big for my tastes. I like SFJ because it feels like a community. I read Orion for the occasionally amazing essays.
I probably won’t subscribe to Taproot, but that’s only because I’m a contributor and the publisher is a good friend, which damn well ought qualify me for complimentary issues (hear that, Miller?). But otherwise, I’d be all over this puppy, which comes out next month. I tried to convince my friend to call it Taproot: the journal of place-based living; he was probably right to ignore me, but that’s what it feels like to me and that’s how I’m describing it here. It’s quarterly, it’s ad-free, and it’s really good. Check it out.
The Funniest Day of My Life
February 18th, 2012 § 5 Comments
Penny had an appointment up in Newport, which is so close to the Quebec border, you can smell the poutine from Main Street. The boys and I settled in, me to cleaning the house and basically dithering around; the boys were immersed in some made-up game or another. It was generally understood that after lunch, we would engage in a long and vigorous rough housing session. The boys and I love to rough house, although I must admit, I loved it more when they weighed about 50-pounds less, collectively.
The phone rang at 11:25 or so. It was Penny, calling from a stranger’s cell phone (we don’t own one) in the parking lot of a gas station outside Newport. “The car broke down. I need you to come get me.” Sure. No problem. I was not perturbed, for these are the sort of things that happen, and they do not warrant upset. Besides, I had an entirely unjustified faith in my ability to get the Subaru running again. No doubt it was just a bad connection to the starter or something. I would swoop in, crawl under the car with a hammer and a screwdriver, give’r a few taps and turns, and the damn thing would fire right up. I would be my family’s hero, and what is better than that? Nothing, that’s what.
Newport is an hour away, which is not so bad, except that the kid we bought our Chevy from had seen fit to remove the catalytic converter and replace it with a straight pipe and one of those “cherry bomb” mufflers that sound like the friggin’ thing’s farting into a megaphone. It’s tolerable around town, but on the highway…. it’s like being inside a tuba or something. The other consideration (which wasn’t really a consideration, because what choice did I have?) is that the Chevy gets about 8 mpg. Newport and back would be nearly 100 miles, so we’d be vaporizing somewhere in the vicinity of $45 worth of gas. Ah, but we wouldn’t: Unbeknownst to the boys and me, as we motored blithely up I91 inside our 8 mpg tuba, this would be a one-way trip.
The car was done. And when I say done, I mean threw-a-rod-through-the-engine-block done. There would be no crawling, tapping, or turning. There would be no heroics. All of its precious lifeblood – oil – was pooled under the motor and when I turned the key, the engine made such a clatter, I dare say the Chevy was jealous. Or would have been, because a most-unlikely and almost-funny thing had happened: Mere feet from where the Subaru had taken its last, dying breath, the Chevy had decided that it too was weary of this world. It stalled and would not start and – believe it or not, but I promise that I am not lying – had spit most of its engine oil onto the highway’s edge. It looked like one of those spreading pools of blood you see in movies when someone gets shot.
I am not going to claim that I handled the situation with total equanimity. But I will say that even in the moment, Penny and I and the boys (especially the boys) made many a joke, in which our plight served as both setup and punch line. This was not one of those “we’ll laugh about this someday” scenarios; it was one of those “this is so crazy, there is nothing to do but laugh about it now” situations. It did not hurt that we’d known the old Subaru was due for retirement and had already procured a replacement (an even older Subaru, but in fantastic condition. I think), which was waiting in our driveway. If only we had a way to get to our driveway.
To make a long story only slightly longer, we relied heavily on the kindness of strangers (and my mother, who retrieved us) to extricate ourselves from this clustermuck. I find that this is always the upside of these sort of minor crises: It brings out the best in people, it provides them an opportunity to offer assistance and simple kindness. To simply be needed. We live in a culture of such convenience and abundance that these opportunities don’t present themselves as readily as they once might have (although I suspect they’re always out there, if only we look for them), and to be honest, I think we’re all a little poorer for it.
Later that evening, after we’d finally gotten home and done chores, I went up to the neighbors to pick up waste milk for the pigs. How was your day, they asked, and I sighed and shook my head and told them the whole story. And we all had a nice, long chuckle.
Views
February 14th, 2012 § 4 Comments
On our land there are certain spots where, time and again, I am afforded a view that encompasses so much of what I have come to love about it. Down past the blueberries, a little knoll from which I can see the house and barn and greenhouse, the largest of our three gardens, and the sweep of meadow before it. Or along the bottom edge of the new pasture, looking up the hill, the cows backlit by early morning sun.
There is no logic to the power these views hold over me; they are merely certain angles of the same elements I can see from hundreds of vantage points. Grass. Trees. Animals. Home. There is no logic, but then, I do not ask for or expect it. I accept the gift of these views much as I accept the love of my family, the gift of my animal’s milk and meat, the bounty of the fields and forest that surround me.
I wrote that some time ago; every once in awhile, something I’ve written will randomly pop back into my head, like remembering a dream I hadn’t known I’d had. Such was the case with this short passage, which made me think about how much I appreciate the different views across our property and how comforted I am by them. I’m not sure if it’s simple familiarity, or if it’s the specific elements that are so soothing. Probably it’s some of each.
From my desk, situated in a narrow doghouse dormer directly above the largest of our greenhouses and overlooking the pasture: The sledding and skiing hill, the snow packed hard and cut with tracks. Fast, I know, because yesterday I was showing off for the boys on my skis and bit it hard. The roof the greenhouse, symmetrical bows sheathed in plastic. They remind me of rib bones beneath skin. The bottom row of the blueberries, or half of it, at least. The others obscured by a spruce.
From the kitchen sink, where I stand so often, splashing water over the day’s dishes. “Use some soap, would you?” Penny always says, but I don’t know. Doesn’t really seem necessary, if you ask me. But anyways: The cows, gathered around their hay. Chewing, always chewing. The solar panels, tilted toward the sun, doing their thing with electrons. I don’t really understand it, but later, I’ll run the chop saw and be glad for it just the same. The windmill, spinning too lazily to contribute much, but I like the look of it. It’s spare and skeletal, function over form.
From the pond, my newly favorite view, perhaps because it’s still a surprise (less than a year ago, there was no pond). Looking up through our small sugarbush, pig house to the right. Again the cows, but this time from below. Still chewing, and smaller for the distance. The sledding hill, and from here, the whole of it, including a fresh Ben-sized divot on the downside of the jump. The end of the big greenhouse, but this time from the side. From this angle it doesn’t remind me of anything except that in four or five weeks, we’ll be picking early salads. That will be very nice; fresh greens have been scant of late.
Lately, as I’ve been working on a book about the value of money and our relationship to it, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we lack a common language that might better enable us to express the value of something so personal and subjective as a view. Sometimes I think this is a bad thing, because it inevitably leads us to translate everything into the relatively objective and collective metric of money. This of course is an entirely inadequate and inappropriate method for assigning value to our surroundings and our relationship to them. (So says I)
But there are also times I think it’s good thing, because if we lack a common language, we might individually stretch to find the words that feel right to each of us. And maybe that’s exactly the way it should be.
Tempting Fate
February 13th, 2012 § 3 Comments
It is dangerous to think that winter might almost be over, but no one can help it. It just feels that way; the days are creepingly longer, and the sun has been shining in that late winter way. Not warm, but warm-ish. Not high, but getting higher. Not just bright, but almost too bright, reflecting and refracting off the thin veneer of snow covering the land. The sugarers are tapping in anticipation of an early run, and yesterday afternoon, when I went to the pigs, I found them lounging outside, their bacons turned to the azure sky. Good pigs.
I’ve always loved winter, but I have to admit, it’s fine to feel the slow shift toward spring. This is partly due to the long list of tasks pinned to the pantry door; it’s a list that we already know will not be completed, although no one’s admitting that yet (oh wait: I just did). But the simple facts of the weak snowpack and the ease of movement through the woods have allowed us to make progress months ahead of schedule. Most of next season’s firewood is in, and better than half is split. I am slowly chipping away at the the pile of saw logs from which our new barn will be built. Penny has paced off the new orchard and figured out where to put the chestnuts. As always, our excitement is getting the better of us. It’s our perennial weakness, and I embrace it.
Still, it is only middle February. I was not born yesterday, or even the day before that. April is still almost seven weeks out, and April can be a capricious month, prone to wild swings in temperature and heavy snows that break both tree branch and spirit. Therefore, what I probably ought do is shut the hell up about how much it feels like spring.
And so, I will.
