For those of you intimately familiar with Henry David Thoreau you will recognize the title of this post as a modification of the title of the second chapter of Walden. I happen to be rereading that book, not because I am a great admirer of Thoreau, but mostly because it is one of the few books that has been unpacked since we moved to North Carolina. Having acknowledged the accidental quality of the read, I can say that I am enjoying it very much.
Thoreau begins Walden with a long chapter that largely details how be built his house/cabin/shack on the shores of Walden pond on the outskirts of Concord, Mass. I have been to Walden pond, and spent a pleasant couple of hours one rainy fall day walking around it. I saw the spot that afficiandos have concluded is where he built his house and hoed his beans, and I have looked in the windows of the replica of the building that now stands, easily accessible, next to the parking lot at the south end of the pond. I was not deeply moved, as I suppose I should have been if I had been making a pilgrimage. But I wasn’t a pilgrim, I was merely taking advantage of the small scale of New England when we lived there, and I drove past a lot of Dunkin’ Donuts and Monroe Muffler shops on the way to Concord (which is a very pretty – and very touristy – New England town).
It has been accidental (though understandable) that this blog has been devoted to the myriad of projects necessary to convert one kind of farm to another. The summer and early fall saw a succession of crises, disasters and near-disasters, and unexpectedly funny moments as we worked to establish something. The cliché ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees,’ comes to mind. It is now time to pull back from the examination of our various trees to look at the outlines of the forest they are a part of. After doing that, we can return to the individual trees.
It would be dishonest to say that our family presented a united front as we undertook this new life. From the beginning Kathleen has been skeptical – not to say downright hostile – to the whole idea. She came to North Carolina, but she came kicking and screaming, eyes darting here and there, looking for a way to escape. Her hostility forced me, more than a year ago, to write down what it was I was hoping to discover amid the green hills and valleys of Leicester, N.C. Once I had written it down and showed it to her, she was not impressed. Nevertheless it is the basis of why we have radically changed our lives and taken up our new residence. This is what I put down on paper:
VISION AND GOALS
The vision is three generations of family sitting around a table, sharing a meal that has not involved doing violence to any of God’s creatures. The place is a refuge, as safe as a place can be from the buffeting and storms of this life. But it is not simply hiding under a rock. It is a place that produces things that can be used.
The point of this undertaking is to create a more integrated life that demonstrates:
That people who did not grow up on a farm can be successful at farming;
That a profitable farming/hospitality business can operate successfully in Buncombe County, NC;
That it is possible to make a fulfilling life that is respectful of God’s creation and His creatures, and that demonstrates a more proper form of human husbandry, rather than the domineering tendencies inherent in modern industrial life and farming;
That multiple generations of a family can enjoy and profit from a home place.
None of this has really happened yet, except for three generations of family sitting around a table, sharing a meal. When I wrote it I had not yet read Christopher Lasch’s Haven in a Heartless World, but I have since. Lasch does not really propose solutions to the problems he identifies, but our Gilead Farm is, I hope, one kind of solution. We shall see.