“The concept of country, homeland, dwelling place becomes simplified as “the environment” — that is, what surrounds us. Once we see our place, our part of the world, as surrounding us, we have already made a profound division between it and ourselves. We have given up the understanding — dropped it out of our language and so out of our thought— that we and our country create one another, depend on one another, are literally part of one another; that our land passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies pass in and out of our land; that as we and our land are part of one another, so all who are living as neighbours here, human, plant and animal are part of one another, and so cannot possibly flourish alone; that, therefore, our culture must be our response to our place, our culture and our place are images of each other and inseparable from each other, and so neither can be better than the other.”
Before being involved in the world of farming, I don’t think I’d ever heard of Wendell Berry. Maybe you haven’t yet either. Wikipedia lists him as an “American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.” Glad I know about him now. What a gift he has with words. This past week I finally listened to one of his books, The Unsettling of America, and was impressed. It’s the kind of book which shows you a different way to look at things with a big emphasis on critical thinking. I’ll be sharing more quotes from this book in future posts as I digest them.
As with Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, it is thick with deep thoughts to ponder and reread. The kind of book that after a first pass, I’m inspired to buy a physical copy and go over it again, with patient, thoughtful, and concentrated examination. For me, these types of works feel valuable and worth trying to understand and hopefully integrate the information more permanently.
In the book, Mr. Berry defends the use of draft horse in farming and his passion for it reminded me of when I visited Sand Creek Farm in Cameron, TX in 2014. It was a magazine assignment from Acres USA, to photograph a working farm still using animals for plowing and other farm labor. They needed images for an upcoming issue about homesteading and small scale farming. Draft horse is not common these days, other than maybe with groups like the Amish, or for shows and competitions that keep it alive. Lucky that there was a great example of a working farm only a few hours from Austin. I was excited by the prospect of getting to see and learn about a different way of living and a time-honored practice.
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
As I was driving there early before sunrise, a deer jumped in front of my car and totaled it. That was how the trip started, but after that it was wonderful. I spent the night at the farm and had a very enjoyable dinner with the owner Ben Godfrey and his family. Also, my friend Sarah who had worked at Johnson’s Backyard Garden was living and working there at the time, so it was nice to spend time with her. They gave me a tour of the whole operation which included, growing vegetables in the ground and with aquaponics in greenhouses, milking cows, making cheese, and the animals and equipment needed for draft horse. It was very nice of them to put in the time and complicated work of tacking up the animals and connecting them to plows, trailers, and carts. They demonstrated many of the various ways they used draft horse as I followed along with my camera to capture the story. See the photos below and the final Acres USA cover photo. Definitely one of my favorite jobs so far. You call this work?
It was exciting to be able to drive the horses down the road near the farm for a stretch. They are such powerful animals and so gentle and intelligent. I’ll not easily forget that experience any time soon. Not common at all where I come from! Thanks to Sarah for the photo, grabbed from Instagram.
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound… I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
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