Rushing home from work Friday afternoon, I called Jed to throw all of the clothes and toiletries I had laid out into the small duffel bag at the foot of the bed. I was excited for the weekend get-away with my husband. We were headed to The Land Institute's perennial "Prairie Festival" and I didn't want to miss the barn dance. The sun started setting as we left our camping site and headed to the Big Red Barn. Both old and young men, wearing beards and clean-shaven faces, with a handful in plaid and overalls, were all represented. The women wore their hair long and wild or bonnets with their locks tucked away. Some had jeans while others swung around in flowing skirts. Everyone jumped right in when the caller started barking orders: Find a partner. Dosado. Around your partner. Now Swing! I LOVED it!!
The Prairie Festival is a gathering held every year right in the middle of The Land Institute's fields of prairie out in Salina, Kansas (near the belly-button of the United States). This year's speakers featured Wendell Berry (who I did not see at the barn dance much to my disappointment), Wes Jackson, an ecological economist, an ecologist, an artist, and others. Jed and I went not knowing exactly what we would be gaining from the experience but drawn to it by both the work being done at "The Land" and the fact that Wendell Berry happens to be one of Jed's three favorite authors--the other two being dead (C.S. Lewis and Hugh Nibley). Even though I did not get to dance with Wendell, we both did get to shake his and and exchange a couple of words. He looks rather healthy for his age and has kind eyes. He has been said to be today's Thoreau: a poet, essayist, philosopher, naturalist, and advocate of the small family farmer, as well as farming himself.
A tone of concern for the environment and activism threaded its way through the discourses. But what I appreciated just as much was the hope that these powerhouses expressed when members of the audience voiced discouragement. The ecologist--Sandra Steingraber--communicated it eloquently when she said at times we have to be a hero to keep going on. We can choose to be the "good German" or part of the "French resistance", not knowing the end result of our efforts to be good stewards of Mother Earth.
I am more excited than ever to move forward with my husband in our farming endeavors. Just like our farm's name implies, it will be a sacred trust to work the land gently and with respect. I support Jed's vision of using work horses to tread lightly and try to be as sustainable and self-reliant as possible in our methods of farming.
orty below zero.
Our first couple of days we spent dog mushing together but as the temperature dropped to minus forty and colder we could no longer take the dogs out for fear of frostbiting the dogs. So we stayed in the cabin watching movies and talking most of the day. We would read occasionally, so he showed me the couple of Hobby Farm magazines that he had brought. I took one and started reading. The articles fascinated me. I thought that farming was a dead end career: millions of dollars of debt with little return. But the articles talked about a different way of farming. They were farmers of innovation. Instead of selling wholesale they sold directly to the customer. Instead of using combines to harvest grains they just let their livestock loose on the fields and they did the harvesting for them. Some were even using horses as their main source of power and doing quite well. They weren’t just surviving, they were thriving. These farmers were showing up everywhere all over the country.
Rushing home from work Friday afternoon, I called Jed to throw all of the clothes and toiletries I had laid out into the small duffel bag at the foot of the bed. I was excited for the weekend get-away with my husband. We were headed to The Land Institute's perennial "Prairie Festival" and I didn't want to miss the barn dance. The sun started setting as we left our camping site and headed to the Big Red Barn. Both old and young men, wearing beards and clean-shaven faces, with a handful in plaid and overalls, were all represented. The women wore their hair long and wild or bonnets with their locks tucked away. Some had jeans while others swung around in flowing skirts. Everyone jumped right in when the caller started barking orders: Find a partner. Dosado. Around your partner. Now Swing! I LOVED it!!
The Prairie Festival is a gathering held every year right in the middle of The Land Institute's fields of prairie out in Salina, Kansas (near the belly-button of the United States). This year's speakers featured Wendell Berry (who I did not see at the barn dance much to my disappointment), Wes Jackson, an ecological economist, an ecologist, an artist, and others. Jed and I went not knowing exactly what we would be gaining from the experience but drawn to it by both the work being done at "The Land" and the fact that Wendell Berry happens to be one of Jed's three favorite authors--the other two being dead (C.S. Lewis and Hugh Nibley). Even though I did not get to dance with Wendell, we both did get to shake his and and exchange a couple of words. He looks rather healthy for his age and has kind eyes. He has been said to be today's Thoreau: a poet, essayist, philosopher, naturalist, and advocate of the small family farmer, as well as farming himself.
In the late fall of 2006, Jed and I met one night when I gave him a ride as a favor to his brother. He laughed a loud, contagious laugh and gave me a big hug to greet me. I wore pigtails and was listening to a Bob Dylan CD in the car. Little did we know that our lives would change forever by that chance meeting.
