Time to Grow Your Own
From a young age, I fantasized about living on a farm. I decided at about age 5 that, in the summer before I turned 17, I was going to work on a farm. It never happened, so I still dream about it, even though 17 is long gone.
I loved the sight of farms from a young age. I adored the orderly rows of crops, ridged like corduroy, zipping past the window of our VW bus as it made its pokey way along the highway on long trips. I loved barns. The smell of hay. The idea of coming in exhausted at the end of the day and having a huge meal.
I was idealizing farm life, in a way, but I was a kid. I worked harder at understanding farm life than any other city kid I knew. I got up early every morning to watch the Farm Report on Channel 9, and hear the orotund orations of Orien Samuelson as he read and analyzed the latest commodity prices, and I loved the fact that farmers were watching right along with me.
When I was at summer camp, at around age 13, I told a counselor of my yearning to work on a farm.
"Well, my aunt and uncle will put you to work on their farm in Virginia anytime," Dave said. "But you'd better be ready to work your ass off about 12 hours a day, hurt over every inch of your body, and sit around in the evenings, drinking stuff you shouldn't be drinking and shooting cans and road signs with a shotgun."
I never worked for Dave's aunt and uncle, or any other farmers, for that matter.
I regret it more than ever after reading about the nascent movement of "energy survivalism." It features learning the skills to cultivate energy and food independence, or at least self-reliance, and removing oneself from the collapsing grid of modern excess. The pioneers of energy survivalism may tend to the wild-eyed prophetic types: some anticipate having to fend off hordes of starving disoriented urbanites -- folks who can't grow an herb or make their own latte but who might use their GPS systems to head to the country in search of food, or a least a B&B at which to weather the storm.
I find it pleasingly ironic that, at the possible onset of global upheaval, I'm heading to Divinity School -- and facing a 60-mile round-trip commute to school. A less practical choice could hardly be invented, especially by a person who's been the primary breadwinner in a family with three children, two of whom will be in college next year; especially in a time of rising oil and food prices.
I still can't believe I made this choice. I quake in bed at night and curse myself during the day.
And yet I can't shake the notion that on many levels -- including the practical -- it's a choice I won't regret.
Tomorrow, however, I'm digging a hole to begin a compost heap in the back yard. More vegetables are going in this year.
But face it: I was a city kid, now I'm a suburban dad. I couldn't build a cabin out of Lincoln Logs, much less the real thing. And I couldn't grow a weed without fertilizer.
But farming life, on a smaller scale, may be the wave of the very near future.
--T.A.
I was idealizing farm life, in a way, but I was a kid. I worked harder at understanding farm life than any other city kid I knew. I got up early every morning to watch the Farm Report on Channel 9, and hear the orotund orations of Orien Samuelson as he read and analyzed the latest commodity prices, and I loved the fact that farmers were watching right along with me.
When I was at summer camp, at around age 13, I told a counselor of my yearning to work on a farm.
"Well, my aunt and uncle will put you to work on their farm in Virginia anytime," Dave said. "But you'd better be ready to work your ass off about 12 hours a day, hurt over every inch of your body, and sit around in the evenings, drinking stuff you shouldn't be drinking and shooting cans and road signs with a shotgun."
I never worked for Dave's aunt and uncle, or any other farmers, for that matter.
I regret it more than ever after reading about the nascent movement of "energy survivalism." It features learning the skills to cultivate energy and food independence, or at least self-reliance, and removing oneself from the collapsing grid of modern excess. The pioneers of energy survivalism may tend to the wild-eyed prophetic types: some anticipate having to fend off hordes of starving disoriented urbanites -- folks who can't grow an herb or make their own latte but who might use their GPS systems to head to the country in search of food, or a least a B&B at which to weather the storm.
I find it pleasingly ironic that, at the possible onset of global upheaval, I'm heading to Divinity School -- and facing a 60-mile round-trip commute to school. A less practical choice could hardly be invented, especially by a person who's been the primary breadwinner in a family with three children, two of whom will be in college next year; especially in a time of rising oil and food prices.
I still can't believe I made this choice. I quake in bed at night and curse myself during the day.
And yet I can't shake the notion that on many levels -- including the practical -- it's a choice I won't regret.
Tomorrow, however, I'm digging a hole to begin a compost heap in the back yard. More vegetables are going in this year.
But face it: I was a city kid, now I'm a suburban dad. I couldn't build a cabin out of Lincoln Logs, much less the real thing. And I couldn't grow a weed without fertilizer.
But farming life, on a smaller scale, may be the wave of the very near future.
--T.A.
