It Takes a Village

It's difficult to travel these days.  The chickens seem to think they need food and water on a regular basis, and prefer to be let out in the mornings and secured at night.  There are eggs to gather each day else the chickens begin to cannibalize them or they simply pile up and crack under their collective weight. 

And there is, of course, the garden.  Since the first seed catalogs and their glossy pictures arrived last winter I have nursed the vision of harvest -- through ordering, garden layout, seeding in the greenhouse, planting in the rows, weeding and watering and coaxing and praying.  And now, just as the picking is in full swing we are going to leave town?  Now, at the very time when a few missed seconds allows the cucumbers to swell to obscene dimensions?  Now, when a neglected okra spear can morph from a culinary delicacy into a projectile that NASA could fuel and fill and launch to resupply the space station?  Now, just as the squash bugs are getting out of control and the carrots are ready to pull and the tomatoes are turning red?  Now?

Well, yes.  Now was the time for the week-long road trip scheduled and paid for last December -- before those seeds had even arrived, let alone planted.  Before we had thought about chickens or coops or the daily work of tending them. 

Which confirmed for me the wisdom of the African proverb that has grounded me in recent years:  "If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together."  

Farming -- homesteading -- is not for loners. 

There is ample solitude, to be sure.  The chickens and I have our quiet time together.  And crouched on knee pads, scooting along the garden rows with gloved hands pulling weeds and invading grass away from tender shoots and stems there is ample time to absorb the silence  -- or be absorbed by it.  There is time and space in which to listen to your heartbeat, admire the quiet tenacity of an earthworm, glory in the butterfly and curse the nibbling varmints as though no one can hear you...because no one will. 

But farming is an act of community.  No matter how self-sufficient I try to become -- untethered from the conventional food system, repairing my own tools, harvesting rain, recycling manure, saving seeds, preserving harvest, cooking our own meals -- we can't survive in isolation.  At least not in any fashion that we would characterize as "surviving."  The chickens contribute to the fertilizer, but I depend upon the alpacas next door for the bulk of it.  There is always another mystery bug I need someone with more experience to identify and troubleshoot.  There is equipment I can't repair.

And we like to travel every once-in-awhile. 

In our absence we are blessed with encouraging and generous neighbors and friends who are willing stop over and pick up the slack.  And the eggs.  Some even hint that they enjoy it.  Gary and Kay and Kathy and Art.  Mike and Larry and occasional grandsons and visiting relatives who tag along or get dragged along for the novelty of seeing country life up close.  And hopefully to pick a few tomatoes while they are here and fill a carton with eggs as partial payment due.

Because I couldn't do it without them.  And I am grateful to them and for them.  As the other old African proverb puts it, "It takes a village to raise a child." 

To raise a garden as well.