Cultivating Spirit on the Small Farm

[Carl Russell]

As we discuss reducing our dependence on artificial energy systems, and return to biological power, using draft animals and our own physical energy, we shift our focus away from spending time to earn money to buy needs, to spending more time personally endeavoring to provide those needs. The time becomes an investment that we recoup directly.

As we have talked about there are ways to make good money using draft animals, but most of the time it is the low cost of operation that is the biggest benefit. Often the low cost also is also reflected in low cash flow. The more we work within this system to cover the various needs, the more we personally require return.

The energy that we get as a direct result of our farming, in the form of food, is probably the most tangible return. From a caloric standpoint it can be integrated into the cycle of investment-return-re-investment. Even when stacked up against store bought food of equal quality there can be some financial savings. But beyond caloric and financial returns, there is something else.

For anybody who gets up early in the morning, puts their head down, and busts their ass all day knows there is an energy source that trumps both money and calories. It is available to each of us, and if we use it appropriately, we can find limitless return. We can invest it in all of our daily endeavors, gaining as we use it, and as we receive its return.

Striving for personal physical involvement in the Life around me, by creatively expressing my own initiative, by taking my participation seriously, and by investing myself emotionally I have experienced an intimacy with the energy that flows through all things. By recognizing that this energy exists, and that when I get close to the Earth I can be a part of it, I have learned to value the contribution it brings to my life.

A few years back I wrote a poem that expresses this. I titled it;
Cultivating Spirit on the Small Farm

And it goes like this;

When I was young it was a potato field.
They grew hay there before that.
A quarter acre glacial terrace,
Never quite washed away.

A decade ago I started working here.
It was growing saplings then.
I cut and burned brush,
And pulled roots and picked stone.

With the horses and steers I plowed,
Spread manure, harrowed, and cultivated.
With my wife I planned, and planted,
Struggled, fought, wondered, and hoped.

I have picked bugs, and pulled weeds,
Picked more stone, and hoed hills.
In cold rain, wet snow, drizzle and fog.
At dawn, or at dusk, and in hot summer sun.

I have worked with the soil, and with plants,
And I have found both feast and failure.

These thoughts come to me as I kneel in mud,
Freshly softened by the warmth of early spring.
I push my fingers into the cold slimy soil,
And grasp, twist, and pull each perfect parsnip.

I can’t wait to bring in this harvest.
The first crop of the year, a true success.
With both hands I hold them, heading for home,
Overwhelmed by the sweet fragrance of edible Earth.

Power Pours through my arms, these are not mere roots.
I feel pain and stiffness dissolve throughout.
Just then, the brook bellows from below,
And songbirds sing down from tree tops.

I listen to them, and I smile.
From deep inside I feel it now.
It is not me who has made this field,
But this field that has made me. CBR3/28/95

This is the field where we grow our potatoes and garlic, some of which we sell at Farmers Market as “Post Peak Oil Produce”. Carl

[Rod]

we shift our focus away from spending time to earn money to buy needs, to spending more time personally endeavoring to provide those needs. wrote:

One thing that I do when involved with meeting my needs by my own efforts instead of buying or spending to do the same is to try and remember that my efforts are tax free. This is money that I do not have to earn and be taxed on the earnings. If you are tempted to spend money to get something done because it’s seems cost effective, divide the amount of money you would spend by (1-your tax rate percentage )and you will get the true money value of your efforts. This assumes of course that the money you were going to spend was not a deductable expense and that you had the money in the first place. But it help me in keep perspective certain instances to do this excersize.
This does not take away from the point that Carl is making and which I fully agree with. There are intangable values that can far exceed the money value that we place on things or acitvities in our ” consumer society”. Incidently, How do you like being called a consumer? It is a sad place we have come to in many ways in our culture.

[Anonymous]

Carl,
Thanks for sharing your poem. As I was reading, it sent tingles down my neck. We share your sentiments wholeheartedly. It’s beautiful with the time references and mindfulness of the life around you…the last two lines really did me in, then I steamed up. You should continue to write. You have a ready and understanding fan club here!

[KevinFlys]

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a WoW Gold genre of online computer role-playing games (CRPGs) in and which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, So please try WoW Powerleveling and players assume the role of a fictional character not Runescape Powerleveling and (most commonly in a fantasy world),and take control over many of that character’s actions.MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player CRPGs by the number of players, and by the game’s persistent world, usually hosted by the game’s publisher, which continues to exist or and evolve while the player is away from the game.someone said that is a great idear,but i think it’s a nice choose! why? because that and Maple Story Mesos it’s a best games items for mmorpg,and somefor games player not to be our best games,lol~ we should try and buy some also we can learn some to improve our games account! ThanksRunescape

[bivol]

true, cultivating a life and the culture of life on small farms is, to my opinion, the way to go for the future
several benefits:

1.there are more people living now in the world than 100 y before. so, an average farm should be smaller so there can be more of them. this may sound as simple math, devoid of actual state of things, but remember that, once the fossil fuels are gone, there will be no big city populations working in industry, because of the lack of power for the industry.

2.also, people living in small communities tend to be more helpful to each other. a whole new local community exists after the localization. this happened in cuba after the shift in the ’90s.
historically, there were systems in which the villagers helped each other in accomplishing tasks which would take more time than alone. amish still build buildings together. in balkan, there were provisory “mobs”, or bands of villagers who gathered to work on one particirants field today, to be working on another’s tomorrow.

3.higher natality-more children are born. that’s important in my region, which was swept by “white plague”, how depopulation is called.

4. and not to say that localized, self sufficient community is less suspectable market crysis, fossil fuels, or the actual recession.

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