Home Grown_Adventures in Parenting Off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting With the Natural World by Ben Hewitt

Author:Ben Hewitt [Hewitt, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education, Non-Formal Education, Parent Participation, Home Schooling
ISBN: 9781611801699
Google: rfZ0BAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1611801699
Goodreads: 20176373
Publisher: Roost Books
Published: 2014-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

The End

There is no where from here for me.

Our children may choose other things,

this land pass into other hands.

I will be here on the hillside,

lying in a shallow grave,

covered by the native stones,

gone to rest in native ground;

mossy rocks, a gentle mound,

bones sweetening the acid soil.

ASK THE COWS

Once again we awoke to the sound of rain slapping the metal roof over our heads. There are many things a tin roof is good for—shedding snow, thriftiness and ease of installation, longevity—but none compare to its excellence in transmitting the sound of raindrops upon contact.

The rain has been incessant. Everywhere you go, first-cut hay remains standing. Perhaps not all of it, but plenty enough, growing taller and stemmier and less palatable by the minute. It’s a full month past when most farmers prefer to be finished with first-cut, in part because the nutritional content is vastly superior before so much precious plant energy is expended in the seed head, but also because there’s a fairly simple rule of haying, which says that you can’t take second-cut until you’ve taken first-cut, and you darn well can’t take third until you’ve taken second. In other words, it’s not only that the first cutting will be of reduced quality, it’s that there will be less time for second and third cuts to rise from the soil.

We return from chores, soaked at both ends: our heads and shoulders by the rain that is falling, and our feet and lower legs by the rain that has fallen and now clings to the pasture grass that is growing by inches per day. Everything is lush and verdant, almost overwhelmingly alive. Our boots are permanently waterlogged, our feet wrinkled and clammy.

The boys are unfazed by the constant deluge. Indeed, they seem to hardly notice it, and not for the first time I wonder to what extent our children’s reactions are learned, rather than innate. Is it possible that the only difference between a child who plays in the rain and one who does not is that the latter has been taught to avoid the rain?

I have little patience for lament regarding forces over which we have no control, and the same could be said of the majority of the famers I know, whose very livelihood is dependent on such forces in ways that mine is not. I do not hear complaints from these men and women; commentary, sure, perhaps a sigh, a roll of the eyes, a shrug of the shoulders. But not complaints. Complaining takes energy; it is a brittle and hollowing force, not unlike anger or judgment. It does nothing to advance the human intellect and spirit, and therefore it is best saved for moments that are truly worth inflicting these wounds upon ourselves.

All this rain has reminded us how fortunate we are to inhabit a piece of land that drains well. Despite the sodden state of things, the gardens are (mostly) looking hale and hearty, and the critters are their usual implacable selves; I’ve long thought that cows might be a better model for human behavior than the majority of our so-called leaders.

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