I registered with the Farm Service Agency last week. We talked on the phone couple of times before I set up an appointment, and then I showed up at their office to sign some papers. When I arrived, they had pulled information about our property and had drawn up the necessary paperwork. It was all under my husband’s name. They asked me to sign his name, then write “by,” and then sign my name.
At no point previous to this had I even mentioned my husband.
The next day, I asked a Farm Service Agency representative why this happened and whether there were any implications to it. He said it was not a big deal, and they probably went by the name that was on the deed of the farm. We bought the place jointly though. Our names are both on the deed. I asked another young female farmer about this, and she said the same thing happened to her, so she went down to the Farm Service Agency and asked them to add her name to the papers. Now her farm receives three copies of everything the agency mails out: one for her, one for her husband, and an extra one just for the sake of thoroughness. I should probably do the same thing. I want my name on those papers, too. A couple generations ago, I might not have been able to accomplish such a thing.
Having people assume that I would not be in charge of farming also makes it harder for me to imagine that I could be. For the first 30 years of my life, I did not fully consider that I could be a farmer and a woman at the same time. I assumed that I could be a farmer’s wife (an assumption confirmed by the paperwork I signed last week). Women are taking a very active role in the sustainable farming movement, and I am gathering more and more role models, but when I went to the ACRES sustainable farming conference last fall, I think there was about one woman for every 10 men.
This would all be much easier to take in stride if I had more confidence in my ability to farm. I don’t have that yet. I am woefully inexperienced, I have some health issues, and I have spent most of my life believing that I could not farm. Besides, farming is hard -- for anyone.
People say it was brave to buy the farm and move here. That was a scary time, but at least it was resolved when we made the move. It is taking more courage for me to be working towards farming without always believing that I can do the job.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
spreadsheets
Here it is January, and we need to be planning for the next season, and so far, we have reached clarity about two things: We need a better filing system, and we need to organize our finances.
I find very little romance in this.
I want to plan our garden and arrange for internships so we can learn how to work with cattle. I want to put up a website and start marketing chicken! I want to prepare for selling home-canned tomato sauce at the Farmer’s market! But no. Finances it is. We want to have a good foundation in place so that when we get overwhelmed with farming work, we can be well enough organized to stay afloat. As a teacher from our Farm Beginnings class said, you want to learn aikido before someone surprises you in a dark alley. That sounds more dramatic and intriguing than working with spreadsheets.
God give me patience.
I find very little romance in this.
I want to plan our garden and arrange for internships so we can learn how to work with cattle. I want to put up a website and start marketing chicken! I want to prepare for selling home-canned tomato sauce at the Farmer’s market! But no. Finances it is. We want to have a good foundation in place so that when we get overwhelmed with farming work, we can be well enough organized to stay afloat. As a teacher from our Farm Beginnings class said, you want to learn aikido before someone surprises you in a dark alley. That sounds more dramatic and intriguing than working with spreadsheets.
God give me patience.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Another one
Last night, I gave food to the outside cats. I was about to pick up their leftovers about 20 minutes later, so I peeked out the bathroom window to see if the cats were finished. There, on the deck, eating cat food, was a possum.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Shooting the possum – it was like this
We have been keeping our gun in the locked trunk of my moter-in-law's car, which is parked by our garage. Our babysitting co-op demands that guns be locked away when children come over, so when children are coming over we cart the rifle out to the trunk, and then we fetch it back into the house again if we want to drive the car somewhere. Eventually, my husband will have the chance to build a small cabinet for it, but in the meantime, it is a migrating gun. (And it is always locked, by the way. We wrap a gun lock, which looks like a miniature bicycle lock, through it to keep it from being loaded, and we sneakily hide the key.)
When the possum first showed up on the porch after the long cold spell, our gun was in the car. To fetch it, I had to walk right by the possum, which meandered down under the deck when it saw me coming. I lifted the long rifle from the trunk and balanced it in my hands as I walked purposefully across the driveway feeling as though I were living the life of someone I didn’t know. Once the gun was put away, I had to leave home to pick up my daughter. I felt relieved to have been given such a sensible reprieve.
My husband stayed overnight in the cities that night, as he often does to cut down on his commute, and I dreamed throughout the early morning that a pack of hunters was sneaking around the edges of my house, trying to kill the woman. Sometimes they would take a shot, or several shots, and I could feel the sounds reverberating in my skin. Sometimes I dreamed I was kneeling on my bed peeking out the window. I was wearing the same nightgown, it was dark, and I could hear the children breathing in their sleep, but if I waited long enough, I saw men with guns rounding the corner of our back porch. I was not sure that the front door had locked properly.
This is the type of nightmare that I had more often about 10 years ago, when my experience of witnessing a murder was fresh. Now my nightmares about murder usually involve ghosts and haunted stairways. I rarely hear gunshots anymore in my dreams.
Years ago, I would wake up from nights of bad dreams feeling as though my balance was unsteady, and any misstep might send me into a panic, but in the morning last week, I woke up strong. The children went off to school, and then my son came home for lunch. It was about 2:30 PM when I went to the bathroom and through the throom window, I saw the possum on the deck. I had left the cat food out on purpose, and he was eating it.
It took a long time to get the gun ready. I had to haul it out of the hiding space, rush to the other end of the house to find the key to unlock it, fiddle around with the lock, and then load it. Loading it was not easy. In the middle of it, Ian called to ask a question about our water softener, and I answered him, “How do you load this gun?” He talked me through it, told me to call him back as soon as I could, and then explained the situation to the three junior high students who were staying after school with him. The four of them waited for the phone to ring with news.
By the time the gun was loaded, the possum was gone. My son and I waited in the bathroom for a while, and then I decided that I would set out wet cat food to coax him back. As I opened the back door with the food, the possum greeted me, turned slowly, and hopped down under the deck again. My son and I settled back into the bathroom to wait. There are no screens on the bathroom windows, so I opened one of them, stuck a few inches of rifle out of it, and then got down to the business of trying to hush my excited kindergartner.
The possum’s head appeared above the deck. It’s closely-spaced eyes glittered, and it’s pink nose twitched. Cautiously, it crawled onto the deck and made its way over to the cat food. I have shot a gun only once before in my life, when my husband and I did target practice with a Rye Crisp box. I put the rifle to my shoulder, tipped my head down to look through its sites, and remembered that I had to aim a little low. The first bullet landed quietly at my feet. Apparently I had been too vigorous about undoing the safety mechanisms. The second rang out, but the possum just glanced up from its food.
The third bullet hit. At this point, all kinds of things seemed to be happening at once. My son ran out of the room, the possum flapped around on the deck, and I frantically tried to shoot it again and again because I did not want it to suffer. In retrospect, I think it did not suffer long. It’s back end was responsible for all the flapping, while its front crumpled. Still, it seemed like forever, and I ran out of bullets before the possum was still. In all my hurry, I think I only put five bullets in the gun.
The possum lay on the deck, its long fur blowing in the wind. A large red puddle of blood grew underneath it. Standing in the bathroom, I called Ian on the phone, and his students cheered. Still in the bathroom, I called my mother at her work, and she was speechless. My son joined me again in the bathroom, apparently cheerful. He said he had watched from the upstairs bathroom because the noise hurt his ears.
“What did you think of that,” I asked.
“It was disgusting,” he said, wrinkled his nose, and bopped around, I i me n E. good humor.
I finally went out to clean up the mess. There was a strong, musky smell out there, very much like the smell I remember from when my father shot two mink that were killing our chickens when I was a child. It was a powerful smell that filled our bathroom much of the evening, and the next morning it suddenly started emanating from me when I got warm teaching a Pilates class.
We thought it would be most respectful to eat the possum, but when I looked down at the deck, covered with blood and soft possum droppings, I decided it was just too much. My dad once showed me how to skin a raccoon, and I have watched an instructional video about how to dress a chicken, but when it came down to it, I got too overwhelmed. I want someone to show me how to dress and animal before I try it myself. I picked up that soft flexible body up by its hairless tail, put it in a trash bag, and kept it in our trash can. Ian later took it out to the woods, hoping that it would be more respectful to the possum if something had a chance to eat it.
Then I got down to the business of cleaning up the deck. There was enough bloody snow to fill a small bag, and then I poured bucket after bucket of water to rinse the crimson off our deck, right in front of the main door to the house. The cat dishes were spattered with blood, as was the shovel. “Nothing says ‘Welcome’ like pools of blood in front of your door!” I joked with myself, not because it was funny, but because I really wanted some kind of joke just then. It smelled like cleaning fish. That smell must be the scent of blood.
That and w and as the end of it.
A few days left later, I read that Meister Eckhart wrote that every creature is the word of God and a book about God. I believe that. I am not sure how that fits with what I did, but for now I feel peaceful living with that mystery for now.
A few days after that, when I went to pick up my son from his floor hockey practice, he picked up his hockey stick like a rifle. I scolded him, and told him not to point even pretend guns at people. His playing guns didn’t scare me as much as it sometimes has.
In some ways, this is a new world for me.
When the possum first showed up on the porch after the long cold spell, our gun was in the car. To fetch it, I had to walk right by the possum, which meandered down under the deck when it saw me coming. I lifted the long rifle from the trunk and balanced it in my hands as I walked purposefully across the driveway feeling as though I were living the life of someone I didn’t know. Once the gun was put away, I had to leave home to pick up my daughter. I felt relieved to have been given such a sensible reprieve.
My husband stayed overnight in the cities that night, as he often does to cut down on his commute, and I dreamed throughout the early morning that a pack of hunters was sneaking around the edges of my house, trying to kill the woman. Sometimes they would take a shot, or several shots, and I could feel the sounds reverberating in my skin. Sometimes I dreamed I was kneeling on my bed peeking out the window. I was wearing the same nightgown, it was dark, and I could hear the children breathing in their sleep, but if I waited long enough, I saw men with guns rounding the corner of our back porch. I was not sure that the front door had locked properly.
This is the type of nightmare that I had more often about 10 years ago, when my experience of witnessing a murder was fresh. Now my nightmares about murder usually involve ghosts and haunted stairways. I rarely hear gunshots anymore in my dreams.
Years ago, I would wake up from nights of bad dreams feeling as though my balance was unsteady, and any misstep might send me into a panic, but in the morning last week, I woke up strong. The children went off to school, and then my son came home for lunch. It was about 2:30 PM when I went to the bathroom and through the throom window, I saw the possum on the deck. I had left the cat food out on purpose, and he was eating it.
It took a long time to get the gun ready. I had to haul it out of the hiding space, rush to the other end of the house to find the key to unlock it, fiddle around with the lock, and then load it. Loading it was not easy. In the middle of it, Ian called to ask a question about our water softener, and I answered him, “How do you load this gun?” He talked me through it, told me to call him back as soon as I could, and then explained the situation to the three junior high students who were staying after school with him. The four of them waited for the phone to ring with news.
By the time the gun was loaded, the possum was gone. My son and I waited in the bathroom for a while, and then I decided that I would set out wet cat food to coax him back. As I opened the back door with the food, the possum greeted me, turned slowly, and hopped down under the deck again. My son and I settled back into the bathroom to wait. There are no screens on the bathroom windows, so I opened one of them, stuck a few inches of rifle out of it, and then got down to the business of trying to hush my excited kindergartner.
The possum’s head appeared above the deck. It’s closely-spaced eyes glittered, and it’s pink nose twitched. Cautiously, it crawled onto the deck and made its way over to the cat food. I have shot a gun only once before in my life, when my husband and I did target practice with a Rye Crisp box. I put the rifle to my shoulder, tipped my head down to look through its sites, and remembered that I had to aim a little low. The first bullet landed quietly at my feet. Apparently I had been too vigorous about undoing the safety mechanisms. The second rang out, but the possum just glanced up from its food.
The third bullet hit. At this point, all kinds of things seemed to be happening at once. My son ran out of the room, the possum flapped around on the deck, and I frantically tried to shoot it again and again because I did not want it to suffer. In retrospect, I think it did not suffer long. It’s back end was responsible for all the flapping, while its front crumpled. Still, it seemed like forever, and I ran out of bullets before the possum was still. In all my hurry, I think I only put five bullets in the gun.
The possum lay on the deck, its long fur blowing in the wind. A large red puddle of blood grew underneath it. Standing in the bathroom, I called Ian on the phone, and his students cheered. Still in the bathroom, I called my mother at her work, and she was speechless. My son joined me again in the bathroom, apparently cheerful. He said he had watched from the upstairs bathroom because the noise hurt his ears.
“What did you think of that,” I asked.
“It was disgusting,” he said, wrinkled his nose, and bopped around, I i me n E. good humor.
I finally went out to clean up the mess. There was a strong, musky smell out there, very much like the smell I remember from when my father shot two mink that were killing our chickens when I was a child. It was a powerful smell that filled our bathroom much of the evening, and the next morning it suddenly started emanating from me when I got warm teaching a Pilates class.
We thought it would be most respectful to eat the possum, but when I looked down at the deck, covered with blood and soft possum droppings, I decided it was just too much. My dad once showed me how to skin a raccoon, and I have watched an instructional video about how to dress a chicken, but when it came down to it, I got too overwhelmed. I want someone to show me how to dress and animal before I try it myself. I picked up that soft flexible body up by its hairless tail, put it in a trash bag, and kept it in our trash can. Ian later took it out to the woods, hoping that it would be more respectful to the possum if something had a chance to eat it.
Then I got down to the business of cleaning up the deck. There was enough bloody snow to fill a small bag, and then I poured bucket after bucket of water to rinse the crimson off our deck, right in front of the main door to the house. The cat dishes were spattered with blood, as was the shovel. “Nothing says ‘Welcome’ like pools of blood in front of your door!” I joked with myself, not because it was funny, but because I really wanted some kind of joke just then. It smelled like cleaning fish. That smell must be the scent of blood.
That and w and as the end of it.
A few days left later, I read that Meister Eckhart wrote that every creature is the word of God and a book about God. I believe that. I am not sure how that fits with what I did, but for now I feel peaceful living with that mystery for now.
A few days after that, when I went to pick up my son from his floor hockey practice, he picked up his hockey stick like a rifle. I scolded him, and told him not to point even pretend guns at people. His playing guns didn’t scare me as much as it sometimes has.
In some ways, this is a new world for me.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Killing the possum – conflicting advice
I shot the possum.
On Friday afternoon, he came right up to our back door again to look around for spilled cat food, and I poked my rifle out of the bathroom window and shot at him until he stopped moving.
To the best of my understanding, it was my job to do this. About a month ago, after I accidentally brushed into the possum while rummaging through boxes in our garage, I called a friend for advice. Our friend Kurt has been farming all his life and I know that he has a deep respect for all living things. He said that the right thing to do in this situation would be to shoot the possum, and that if we felt uneasy doing it, then we should probably ask a neighbor to do it for us. He noted that this particular animal had little fear people, and that possums can sometimes be aggressive. Our friend also expected that it would work hard to eat our baby chicks in the spring.
We talked about trapping the possum in a live trap, and then driving far away and letting him out, but that did not sound right either. It is not really possible for us to drive "out into the country" to release an animal because we are already there. The 120 acres of woods across the street are about as wild as it gets in this land of corn and soybean fields. We expected that if we were to drove down the road and let the possum out, then he would head straight for someone else’s barn or shed because it was unafraid of humans. That did not seem right either.
So, we bought a gun.
I never expected to be doing anything like this, and along with the awful image in my head of the possum’s last thrashing, I am holding sense of thrill that I was able to do the job. I don't know what to think of the grief or the excitement. Probably I shouldn't spend time thinking about either. I need to focused on the movement of the Spirit, as best as I am able to understand it.
Staying focused and grounded in God feels especially important right now because there are conflicting opinions in my head, and I don't feel like either one of them is fully my own. On one hand, by killing the possum, we were following advice grounded in experience, given to us by somebody cares about us. We need that kind of advice because there are so many things that we do not know about living in the country. Although we did not move so far from home, in some ways, it feels like we've moved to another nation, and I would feel arrogant to forge ahead without the guidance of farmers we trust.
On the other hand, we have spent most of our adult lives around people who would not feel easy with the idea of shooting possums. A friend of mine from Minneapolis came down to visit yesterday and was talked at length about how it is arrogant for people to feel they have the right to kill an animal for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She says she hopes I never do anything like that again because she concerned that doing violence to the possum might hurt my spirit, and she wondered if I might become desensitized to brutality.
What she said is very possibly true, but I expect we’ll continue to feel like we're not in a place where we can follow her advice.
On Friday afternoon, he came right up to our back door again to look around for spilled cat food, and I poked my rifle out of the bathroom window and shot at him until he stopped moving.
To the best of my understanding, it was my job to do this. About a month ago, after I accidentally brushed into the possum while rummaging through boxes in our garage, I called a friend for advice. Our friend Kurt has been farming all his life and I know that he has a deep respect for all living things. He said that the right thing to do in this situation would be to shoot the possum, and that if we felt uneasy doing it, then we should probably ask a neighbor to do it for us. He noted that this particular animal had little fear people, and that possums can sometimes be aggressive. Our friend also expected that it would work hard to eat our baby chicks in the spring.
We talked about trapping the possum in a live trap, and then driving far away and letting him out, but that did not sound right either. It is not really possible for us to drive "out into the country" to release an animal because we are already there. The 120 acres of woods across the street are about as wild as it gets in this land of corn and soybean fields. We expected that if we were to drove down the road and let the possum out, then he would head straight for someone else’s barn or shed because it was unafraid of humans. That did not seem right either.
So, we bought a gun.
I never expected to be doing anything like this, and along with the awful image in my head of the possum’s last thrashing, I am holding sense of thrill that I was able to do the job. I don't know what to think of the grief or the excitement. Probably I shouldn't spend time thinking about either. I need to focused on the movement of the Spirit, as best as I am able to understand it.
Staying focused and grounded in God feels especially important right now because there are conflicting opinions in my head, and I don't feel like either one of them is fully my own. On one hand, by killing the possum, we were following advice grounded in experience, given to us by somebody cares about us. We need that kind of advice because there are so many things that we do not know about living in the country. Although we did not move so far from home, in some ways, it feels like we've moved to another nation, and I would feel arrogant to forge ahead without the guidance of farmers we trust.
On the other hand, we have spent most of our adult lives around people who would not feel easy with the idea of shooting possums. A friend of mine from Minneapolis came down to visit yesterday and was talked at length about how it is arrogant for people to feel they have the right to kill an animal for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She says she hopes I never do anything like that again because she concerned that doing violence to the possum might hurt my spirit, and she wondered if I might become desensitized to brutality.
What she said is very possibly true, but I expect we’ll continue to feel like we're not in a place where we can follow her advice.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The woods across the street
Across the street from us are almost 120 acres of woods, owned by the state of Minnesota. Before we moved here, I pictured spending hours in those woods every week, but of course it has not worked out that way. Our lives absorb us, and we don't cross the road very often to walk among the trees.
I am often aware of the woods though. When I'm in my house, I sometimes feel the woods as an insistent pressure around my chest, lips, and temples. It is a subtle feeling -- one that I don't even notice when I am busy. Usually I experience it once every couple of days, and then I draw my attention back to the work at hand. Sometimes I let my attention stay with that feeling, and when I do, I can "hear" the "voice" of the woods. I don't hear it with my ears because it is not really a sound. Still, it reminds me of the sound of many voices singing together, some of them like tubas, and some like trill of a cricket, knit together with mellow tones to form a whole, unique voice. When I hear it, I want to open my mouth wide and sing.
Individual trees make "sounds,” too. I sometimes hear them when I am not paying attention, but usually I only hear them after I sit with them for a while and my spirit has been soothed and pulled into harmony with their beautiful humming. The sound of an individual tree is very different from the sound of the woods, though. Together, the trees take on a different character and become something more. From what I've read, this makes ecological sense. They are bound together underground with strings of microbes that extend beyond their root system until there is no way of knowing where the roots end and the microbes begin. Bound together this way, they feed each other underground.
Just as an individual tree pulls my spirit into harmony with its humming, these woods are pulling me into new assumptions about the world. Every day that I listen to the woods, my spirit is pressed with awareness that groups of living things can have a single, powerful voice and that people are not so different from trees in this way.
I'm surprised by the way this shows up in my life. Last weekend, someone was talking to me about the way her body is shaped. The first thing that jumped into my head was that her body shape, with its unique strengths and weaknesses, must be a gift to the community. Maybe it would keep her strong during times when food is scarce. Maybe it has other gifts that have not been discovered yet because the circumstances have not arisen that would bring them to the surface. Maybe some of its weaknesses are covered by strengths found in others.
Because I have been learning from the woods, I also feel a bit less self-conscious about speaking during the silence of Quaker worship. Although I didn't realize it, I have been acting as though the gift of vocal ministry were mine. I have sometimes felt awkward about sharing what was given to me because it felt somehow prideful to draw so much attention to myself. Now, my gut tells me that the gifts entrusted to an individual are gifts that have been given to the group, and I feel easier sharing.
I can see the woods through my window now, a dark gray shape against the light gray sky. I am listening, and I can hear its broad voice rise up to the sky. I am opening my heart so that it can pull my spirit into its rhythm, and slowly teach me more.
I am often aware of the woods though. When I'm in my house, I sometimes feel the woods as an insistent pressure around my chest, lips, and temples. It is a subtle feeling -- one that I don't even notice when I am busy. Usually I experience it once every couple of days, and then I draw my attention back to the work at hand. Sometimes I let my attention stay with that feeling, and when I do, I can "hear" the "voice" of the woods. I don't hear it with my ears because it is not really a sound. Still, it reminds me of the sound of many voices singing together, some of them like tubas, and some like trill of a cricket, knit together with mellow tones to form a whole, unique voice. When I hear it, I want to open my mouth wide and sing.
Individual trees make "sounds,” too. I sometimes hear them when I am not paying attention, but usually I only hear them after I sit with them for a while and my spirit has been soothed and pulled into harmony with their beautiful humming. The sound of an individual tree is very different from the sound of the woods, though. Together, the trees take on a different character and become something more. From what I've read, this makes ecological sense. They are bound together underground with strings of microbes that extend beyond their root system until there is no way of knowing where the roots end and the microbes begin. Bound together this way, they feed each other underground.
Just as an individual tree pulls my spirit into harmony with its humming, these woods are pulling me into new assumptions about the world. Every day that I listen to the woods, my spirit is pressed with awareness that groups of living things can have a single, powerful voice and that people are not so different from trees in this way.
I'm surprised by the way this shows up in my life. Last weekend, someone was talking to me about the way her body is shaped. The first thing that jumped into my head was that her body shape, with its unique strengths and weaknesses, must be a gift to the community. Maybe it would keep her strong during times when food is scarce. Maybe it has other gifts that have not been discovered yet because the circumstances have not arisen that would bring them to the surface. Maybe some of its weaknesses are covered by strengths found in others.
Because I have been learning from the woods, I also feel a bit less self-conscious about speaking during the silence of Quaker worship. Although I didn't realize it, I have been acting as though the gift of vocal ministry were mine. I have sometimes felt awkward about sharing what was given to me because it felt somehow prideful to draw so much attention to myself. Now, my gut tells me that the gifts entrusted to an individual are gifts that have been given to the group, and I feel easier sharing.
I can see the woods through my window now, a dark gray shape against the light gray sky. I am listening, and I can hear its broad voice rise up to the sky. I am opening my heart so that it can pull my spirit into its rhythm, and slowly teach me more.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Tasting Soil
Billions of microbes live in organically farmed soil, I bubbled to my mother. They change the soil so that it's more resistant to drought! They help feed the plants, and they help keep diseases away from plants’ roots! My mother is not keenly interested in soil or microbes, but she listened supportively to my little rant, and then surprised me by telling me something I had not heard before.
"Cousin Pauline said the soil tastes different now than it did when she was a girl, because of all the chemicals they use on the fields now," Mom said. Pauline, a very warm and grounded woman, grew up on the farm where my grandma was born in northwest Minnesota.
“She tasted the soil?" I asked.
“She must have,” Mom answered.
My eyes smarted with sudden tears that I could not explain. Looking back, I think they may have been tears of relief. For Pauline to speak unselfconsciously about tasting the soil, it seems to me that she must have felt a practical, matter-of-fact sort of intimacy with it. I have yearned so deeply for that kind of intimacy, but I have often felt lonely in that yearning, and have felt like kind of an odd duck because of it.
Pauline wasn't an odd duck. Although I met Pauline as a child and have vivid memories of her laugh, I know her mostly through my mother's stories. In those stories, she was rooted, practical, and brimming with life -- someone my mother loved and looked up to since she was a girl.
I asked my mother today about Pauline tasting the soil, and she explained that at the time, Pauline and her husband were moving to a farm that had been in her husband's family for quite a while. They tasted the soil to learn about the land they would be farming, and Pauline thought it tasted bad. From the taste, she and her husband thought that the previous farmers have been using chemicals heavily, and they later found out that they were right.
I did not know that story last April, on the first day my husband and I walked into the field of our new farm, but on that day, I remembered that Pauline had tasted the soil. The field where we walked was mud between rows of the previous year's corn stalks, which stood not quite as high as our hips. We crossed our land, noticing the way the color and texture of the soil changed in different locations. Ian scooped some soil up in his hand and tried to make a snake out of it to see how much clay it had. Sheepishly, I tasted some of it. More than the taste, I noticed its sandy texture between my teeth, and I have no idea whether it tasted good or bad. It tasted like dirt.
Some day, I hope I know some of what Pauline knew. I hope I can understand more of the story that the soil tells.
"Cousin Pauline said the soil tastes different now than it did when she was a girl, because of all the chemicals they use on the fields now," Mom said. Pauline, a very warm and grounded woman, grew up on the farm where my grandma was born in northwest Minnesota.
“She tasted the soil?" I asked.
“She must have,” Mom answered.
My eyes smarted with sudden tears that I could not explain. Looking back, I think they may have been tears of relief. For Pauline to speak unselfconsciously about tasting the soil, it seems to me that she must have felt a practical, matter-of-fact sort of intimacy with it. I have yearned so deeply for that kind of intimacy, but I have often felt lonely in that yearning, and have felt like kind of an odd duck because of it.
Pauline wasn't an odd duck. Although I met Pauline as a child and have vivid memories of her laugh, I know her mostly through my mother's stories. In those stories, she was rooted, practical, and brimming with life -- someone my mother loved and looked up to since she was a girl.
I asked my mother today about Pauline tasting the soil, and she explained that at the time, Pauline and her husband were moving to a farm that had been in her husband's family for quite a while. They tasted the soil to learn about the land they would be farming, and Pauline thought it tasted bad. From the taste, she and her husband thought that the previous farmers have been using chemicals heavily, and they later found out that they were right.
I did not know that story last April, on the first day my husband and I walked into the field of our new farm, but on that day, I remembered that Pauline had tasted the soil. The field where we walked was mud between rows of the previous year's corn stalks, which stood not quite as high as our hips. We crossed our land, noticing the way the color and texture of the soil changed in different locations. Ian scooped some soil up in his hand and tried to make a snake out of it to see how much clay it had. Sheepishly, I tasted some of it. More than the taste, I noticed its sandy texture between my teeth, and I have no idea whether it tasted good or bad. It tasted like dirt.
Some day, I hope I know some of what Pauline knew. I hope I can understand more of the story that the soil tells.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Like losing a shoe
I was walking my friend's dog down a dark gravel road last month when I suddenly slipped up and out of my life as though I were accidentally stepping out of a slip-on shoe. I hovered over myself and the dog, two warm bodies moving around in the chilly night. My skinny shoulders inside my bulky coat were not mine, the road was not mine, the air was not mine. My family, who was at home several miles down the road, was not really mine.
In that place where I hovered, I could feel jovial male presence that reminded me of the stories I have heard about St. Francis of Assisi. I felt warm, calm, and well accompanied, and a sense of joy spread through me as I realized that some day I will slip out of my life for good and keep walking.
Soon, I slipped back down into my beloved and familiar life, but I have been savoring the experience for weeks now. It felt like complete faithfulness.
In that place where I hovered, I could feel jovial male presence that reminded me of the stories I have heard about St. Francis of Assisi. I felt warm, calm, and well accompanied, and a sense of joy spread through me as I realized that some day I will slip out of my life for good and keep walking.
Soon, I slipped back down into my beloved and familiar life, but I have been savoring the experience for weeks now. It felt like complete faithfulness.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Smelling the snow
The snow has so many scents. I know them because, as a child, I spent hours upon hours sitting in a big snowbank that the plow pushed up at the end of our long driveway. As I slid or dug or built, I breathed the smell of snow, and I learned the way they changed with the temperature and humidity. It seemed to me these smells told stories. I did not fully understand stories, but I thought I could pick up on their shape, color, and texture.
As an adult, when I open the back door, and the scents of snow rush in, I feel that I am greeting a familiar character. I am so grateful that we have snow piles at the end of our driveway where our children can dig and slide. I hope they are learning the language of snow.
As an adult, when I open the back door, and the scents of snow rush in, I feel that I am greeting a familiar character. I am so grateful that we have snow piles at the end of our driveway where our children can dig and slide. I hope they are learning the language of snow.
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