Next Chapters and Truth
We are what we choose to do
It’s 6 a.m. The rooster is crowing as the mist rises above the river. The hills are just coming into view as the sun rises above them.
It’s a transformational time of day. I often miss it, not being a “morning person.” But I never tire of it. I step out in my slippers and robe, my phone in hand, my feet feeling the frost, to take photos and video. I listen to birds I don’t usually hear and a pheasant sounding off in the prairie.
The frost came the night before last. Usually, that would mean picking pink tomatoes to ripen inside, mowing the trails and yard one last time, winterizing the outhouses, emptying the tanks on the tractors, lifting the trailer up on blocks so the mice don’t eat the electrical wires, putting new bedding down for the chickens, installing the lamp that keeps their coop warm and bringing in the house plants.
Instead, it meant putting a long-sleeved shirt on under my campaign T-shirt and throwing on my newer Carhartt jacket so I wouldn’t get a chill while knocking on doors. OK, we did get the houseplants in, but that was mostly Paul.
The campaign continues while the farm falls asleep without me. Will the weather hold ‘til after November 5th? Will Nature give me that much time to pull out three sets of garden T-posts and stack them against the shed? Will the welded wire and the chicken wire be pliable enough to roll and store? Will the landscape cloth still lift off the ground? Maybe it doesn’t matter, because the ground is concrete from the lack of rain anyway. All of it may have to overwinter in place, because this next 2 weeks matter more.
Driving down the road to Durant or Blue Grass, Walcott or New Liberty, I feel a tinge of failure combined with recognition. I’m 61 years old. I’m in my next chapter. I’ve lost count of the chapters.
In this chapter, I use our 75 acres to introduce people to perennial crop systems. That’s farmer talk for orchards. We have three – Asian pears/peaches, chestnuts and heartnuts/honeyberries. I utilize Integrated Pest Management, which is farmer talk for having prairie that naturally attracts “good” bugs to control “bad” ones in the orchards. And we run our Hipcamp sites, which in addition to the USDA program funds, helps pay the maintenance so we can share this place and give away the small amounts we grow for a freewill donation.
I never show guests my gardens, which are usually overgrown with weeds and undergrown with things I planted, but somehow most years, I grow more food than we can consume and store for winter. We give the rest away. That puts me somewhere between a mediocre gardener and a hobby farmer. That’s not likely to change before I die.
I’m rough on myself for that, yet I admire my favorite neighbor for how much and how beautifully she grows everything every year for decades now. What’s that about? I make my own choices. I spent 10 years launching a nonprofit to save farmland for food production just as we were getting started with this place. The last 5 years of that, Draco Hill suffered for it.
Just as the fruits of my most recent labor were literally ripening on the trees this year, I couldn’t resist becoming a part of something bigger, once again. And so, Draco Hill Nature Farm gets neglected again, because in every chapter, I’ve been an organizer driven to bring people together for a just cause, and this one is no different.
All is not lost. A few weeks ago, we delivered 60 pounds of tomatoes to the food rescue place in Iowa City. Last week, we took 100 pounds or so to the striking Cargill workers in Cedar Rapids. (Fresh food always welcome on a picket line where every dollar has to stretch.) Attending a labor rally felt like going home, a throwback to a previous chapter.
I’ve even introduced my candidate’s Vietnam-born partner to ground cherries and paw paws, both of which remind him of home. Now he’s planning to plant them on their farm.
We never know the seeds we sow.
I write this at dawn today because that’s the only time I have. Paying subscribers deserve to get what I promised, one postcard every two weeks. And it’s good discipline. Still, don’t be surprised if I miss the Oct. 30 deadline. I hope you understand.
Please turn up the sound and enjoy the morning as much as our dogs did! You’ll hear the pheasant near the end.
What it looks like just before dawn.
Oh my do I ever relate to what you have written. I did get some houseplants in but the others have to make it on their own. Larry has taken over my chores and religiously waters the trees and bushes trying to counteract the effects of a drought once again. My days are spent at our County Democratic headquarters figuring out phone call lists, door knocking turfs, postcard writing. I am grateful for the volunteers who show up but dismayed by the small number of them. Besides being the caretaker of Rolling Acres, larry has also been drawn into pounding holes in the very hard ground to put up large Harris/Walz and Lanon Baccam signs. We, meaning you and others who are putting life aside, are in this because we believe in a fair and equitable society. Thank you for your diligence to help make democracy work.
Suzan--I'm so grateful for what you have done and are still doing to make the world a better place. Thank you thank you for knocking on those doors.