Cool Morning

The air outside is still cold, but since there is no wind and the sun is shining warmly, I decided to let the calves frolic outside. I finished cleaning up their pen and replacing the bedding and stepped outside. The calves were clustered around my red coated heifer. The peacock and guinea hens were strutting around the cattle. Suddenly, Caesar pushed his glorious peacock feathers up in a mating display.

I am having difficulty describing how cool this looked. White snow, black and white calves, red and white cow, the snow-covered mountains as a backdrop, and brilliant blue-green plumage in the center of it all.

I overturned a water bucket and sat down and just watched for a few minutes. After a bit, I added an emotional level to the visual aspect of the scene. I was sitting on my land.

I’m not sure how to explain what Russian peasants used to call “land lust” to city folks. I guess by way of analogy: One of my earliest memories is standing with my Dad and Uncle John in a corn field in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. Dad and John were talking, and as they talked stooped to pick up handfuls of soil – don’t call it dirt – and rolled it between their fingers. For years I never understood why they had such a reverence for the land. Now I do.

This is our land. My daughter and grandchildren will pluck apples from the trees I plant. One day, I will walk, stooped with a cane, out to a barn, and show my great grandchildren the barn I built with my father. I’ll show them how black and friable I’ve made the soil with compost and manure. I’ll explain why tilth matters. When the time comes for our beloved rat terrier to pass on, he’ll have a spot and a marker behind the house. Hell, if the state hasn’t outlawed that sort of thing sixty years from now, I wouldn’t mind adding MY compost to the soil.

My family could, if we chose to forgo the luxuries of pre-prepared food and exotic spices and oils, eat entirely from the sweat of my brow. When I look at the garden I’m also seeing a full pantry. Bonnie represents milk, cheese, cream, and yogurt. The calves represent clean, herbicide-free, hormone-free, drug-free, and cruelty-free meat for my family and friends. When I see the three hundred feet of asparagus, I don’t just see the backbreaking labor of hand-digging a trench of that length, three feet deep and two wide – though, believe it or not, I look back fondly on that week of ten-hour days – I see God’s own vegetables ready to push through the earth when Spring arrives. The twelve varieties of blackberries and raspberries represent picnics with friends and preserves to give away at Christmas. The grapes represent wine (probably bad, as most homebrews are), served at special occasions when the guests have to pretend to like it.

To own your own land. Sometimes (when no one is looking), I’ll just stretch out my arms as if to hug the acres, my chest filled with joy.

Every single day when I come home from school, even after two years, and I pass the oak marking the eastern boundary of Sweet Seasons Farm, a little voice inside me says “This is our land.”

Little moments pop up all the time. This morning it was the peacock and the calves. The other night it was seeing the stars in all their glory. Sometimes it is watching my daughter bottlefeed the calves. Or the day when the Jerusalem Artichokes explode with yellow blossoms.

Well, re-reading that, I’m not sure I have really communicated the joy of land ownership to someone who doesn’t already feel it. If I am inadequate, perhaps I’ll let a couple of professional wordsmiths wrap up the post:

I'm gonna live where the green grass grows
Watchin' my corn pop up in rows
Every night be tucked in close to you
Raise our kids where the good Lord's blessed
Point our rocking chairs towards the west
Plant our dreams where the peaceful river flows
Where the green grass grows

-- Tim McGraw
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/mcgraw-tim/where-the-green-grass-grows-7043.html

the only ground i ever owned was stickin to my shoes
no i look at my front porch in this panoramic view
i could sit and watch the field fill up with rays of golden sun
or watch the moon lay on the fences like thats where it was hung

-- Lonestar
http://www.lyricattack.com/l/lonestarlyrics/myfrontporchlookininlyrics.html

The rules of blogging don’t seem to preclude cheesy country lyrics.