Day: August 16, 2016

The modern agribusiness is steadily wiping out the family farm, writes Wendell Berry, removing it from its cultural context and also from the family and from the land.

Americans don’t really care about this because the urban supermarkets are stuffed with food. The productivity of American agriculture is staggering, but the production, says Berry, is based on the ruin both of the producers and the source of production. The farmers say the big corporations care nothing for the land and know nothing about it.

The people who know about farming, and what farmland requires to remain productive, are worried.  All over the country, topsoil losses exceed the weight of grain or crops that are harvested.

The  government and its economists decided a half-century ago that there were too many people in the country,  and now, they are concluding there are too many people in the city. There, they talk of the new farmers, the unemployable and the disconnected and the left behind.

And it seems many of them have been abandoned there as well, as the needs and interests of the powerful and the political change constantly. Unlike farmers, corporations and lobbyists are very quick to adapt.

No one seems to worry what people are for, or take much trouble to care for them when their lives are disrupted. We are already paying the price for that.

They don’t seem to know it yet, but the left behind of the country and the left behind of the city are brothers and sisters. One day, they may come together.

When the economists and politicians abandoned the country, they sparked one of the great migrations in American or human history, the movement of many millions of people from the country to the city. They took with them the sense of community and the connection to the land that had always been the hallmark of the family farm.

American farmers invented our idea of community, the founders believed community was the core and universal value of the new country. I have not heard a presidential candidate of any disposition mention community once.

Our idea of community has struggled since then. In the cities, people have temporal jobs they hate working for people who care nothing for them,  they are the new form of disposable trash. In the country, there are  few jobs left and the institutions of community – the small stores, feed shops, Granges, churches, factories, restaurants and taverns – are mostly gone.

I think of community when I drove by these hills and see all of the round bales of hay sprouting like magnificent bushes or flowers.  They are a familiar and oddly beautiful part of our landscape.

They will soon be collected and stored for the winter to feed the cows. They are totems of community, people lease their fields to farmers, who harvest the hay and turn them into round or square bales.

I suppose this is why the Round House Cafe is so important to us, it is one of the last strongholds of community left, the others have all been gobbled up by corporate box stores and franchises or shuttered due to the continuous loss of population. The children of the farms are mostly gone, there is little work for them here. You can drive through almost any rural and agricultural community and see the abandoned farmhouses and shuttered Main streets.

My town is in better shape than many, a lot of our farmers are hanging on.

It has been a strange but ultimately good season for hay – dry spells punctuated by dryness and heat. Lately, lots of  rain. The farmers say the first cut was good and plentiful. Second cutting is underway. The round bales are a symbol of our community, also a sign that winter is not too far away.

Farmers spent much of the year thinking about winter, and so do I.

I am not a farmer, but a writer with a farm I write about, and my farm has re-connected me to the land, and I am not suited to be a farmer. I was disconnected from the land, like most people, for much of my life. I am getting re-acquainted with it,  I have to pay attention to the soil and the grass, the weather and the animals, the water and the sun, the trees and the bushes.

I know the farmers who bring me hay, and the farriers who trim our animals hooves, and the shearer who shears our sheep, and the big men in trucks who can re-arrange the earth with their tractors. Many have become my friends, my community. I am not one of them, but we are bound together.

I watch the sky and the soil and talk to the old farmers about what the coming winter will be like, they all have their old and secret methods for knowing and predicting. It is the time of the round bales.

Our life here revolves around nature and the land, and we have to know it in order to be here and care for the animals. We are inexorably bound to the land, we cannot afford to forget about it or be ignorant of it.

I don’t know much, but I hide much of what I know from the people here, they are quick to resent outlanders who think they know too much. They keep an eye out for me.

The time of the round bales tells me the seasons are beginning to change, the moving finger writes again, another season rushes towards me, another begins to fade away.

Farms are part of our cultural context, the threads of community. I pray they never go away.

The old farmer sat in his stand all day in July and August. He sold corn for $5 a dozen, and counted change out of an old cigar box. He sat with a wide straw hat, and I used to pester him for permission to take a photograph. He said no, for about three years, but I used to be a reporter and it never bothers me when people say no, hardly anyone likes reporters and  I learned to be thick-skinned and determined.

The old farmer’s corn was highly regarded, and he had many regular customers who would only buy it from him.  Up here, we all have our favorite farms and we all compare notes about whose corn is biggest, freshest, tastiest. The tourist  stands on the big roads have the worst corn, by the time the tourists get home and eat it, there is no point in complaining.

None of us would be caught dead buying corn in a supermarket, farmers are still respected her, we know we need to support them in every way we can. And their corn is the best. I know the old man’s name know, I’ve gotten his story.

There is some confusion about where he is gone, he may have passed away – he was very sick last year – retired from selling corn, or moved to some other place. Eventually, I will run into someone who knows.

I can’t find the old photograph I took of him, I have taken so many. I saw his chair up on the counter of the farm stand today, I stopped to take a photograph of the chair and of the old $5.00 sign that seemed to be up there for years. The last time I saw him, he was sitting in that chair, pale as a ghost, so think you could almost see right through him.

There is another farm stand just down the road where I go now, the corn is delicious and fresh, I eat some every day. When the country and it’s politicians and economists abandoned the farmers because they were too small and inefficient to compete in the global market, they gave up a lot more than they got, I think.

I was astonished to see this photograph when it came up on the computer, I didn’t touch it or do one thing to it, it just radiated life and color, the soul of the Hibiscus

I wrote yesterday about a women named Anne who wrote me this message about our raising money for Maria’s trip to India, it said simply: “By any other name, it is still cyber-begging.”

As a result of my Civility Program, I did not tell Anne to piss off, she and I are having a spirited conversation about this – she is an intelligent person, a lawyer who does not believe people should undertake anything they cannot afford. I do not believe helping the poor and need is only a function of the wealthy, neither, happily does Maria.

Numerous groups seek money all the time for many good causes, crowdsourcing lets people know precisely where their money is going and what for. It is profoundly democratic, which is, perhaps, why some people jeer at it.

I also believe people can make up their own minds about what they wish to support, or not to support.

I think Anne has gotten past her nastiness, and my back is no longer up,  and we are actually having the beginnings of a civil conversation about this. This may be a small victory, we’ll see. Every time this happens, and we break through the anger,  I think there is hope, and I am committed to keep trying, even if she never agrees with me.

I don’t wish to give the impression that I am criticized and disagreed with all the time, that is not the truth.

My blog – and Maria’s –  has spawned a rich and diverse and profoundly loving community, as Maria is already seeing in regards to her trip. All kinds of people are popping out of the digital ether with offers of help and support.

What a good cause, helping victims of sexual trafficking to learn art as a way of getting to freedom and earning a living. The important thing for us is not where the money comes from but what it goes for.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I don’t get wonderful messages as well, and many of them, and every day, sometimes by e-mail, sometimes in my Post Office Box, Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

This one was from Dave Schoof, a life coach and lealdership counselor who works over much of the world. I wanted to reprint it, because Mr. Schoof speaks precisely to what it is I am seeking to do in my writing and on my  blog, and in my life:

“Hi, Jon, I want to thank you for your blog – I enjoy it immensely. I think your photos evoke a lot of feelings, some even mildly uncomfortable and I love that. Your writing sounds like you are speaking. Receiving the e-mail each morning has become something of a practice for me, like meditation or walking in nature.  I feel grounded and connected.

Simple words, simple reflections that are thoughtful and resonate. I enjoy your dry humor – very dry. So just wanted to let you know, your gift is appreciated and is making a difference for me. And then, I think it helps me make a difference to those in my world. Thanks, Dave.”

Thanks Dave, I enjoyed your message immensely and I thank you for it. I endeavor to write the way I speak, I want it to be authentic and spontaneous. And simple, if sometimes long. I try to spark thought, even uncomfortable thought, and I very much want to make a difference.

You have simply captured almost everything I try to do with my words and photos, and you words touched me and made a difference today. I get enormous support and encouragement every day, and I think it is important to share that as well as the complaints and criticisms.

People have been asking me if I will miss Maria when she goes to India in February, and that is a bit like asking me if I would miss the sun and the light and the color if they all went away. She is my sun, I suppose, she is always so ready to love and to laugh.

I know what the absence of those things means.

I have never been loved in this way before, these years with Maria have been the best of my life, so it will be strange to be so far apart. We have separate work and clear boundaries around them, but or time together has been pure joy and meaning. It is healthy to be apart sometimes, and this trip is her thing, not mine. I don’t belong.

I will miss her,  of course, but I will be very happy when she gets to India and teachers these women how to make her wonderful potholders. She is very excited to have been asked.

I’m already pondering how to run the farm by myself in February, it will be exciting, I am quite comfortable with it, I did it for years. The only help I might need is in snowstorms. I have the best  back-up there is, Red and Fate…well, Red, anyway. Fate will keep me smiling.

The odd thing is I want her to go on this trip to India as much as I have ever wanted anything. Is this selfish in some way, I don’t really know yet. Her work is hers, but her happiness and accomplishment feel like mine sometimes as well.

Maria has all kinds of plans to raise money for this trip She is planning a Dream Quilt which she will raffle to the highest bidder, she is thinking of bring tote bags and potholders back from India, perhaps signed by the sex workers and their children, the people she will be  teaching there. She is checking out grant applications, exploring crowdsourcing sites. She will share all of this on her blog as it develops.

Yesterday, we figured out she needs at least $6,000 for this trip to happen – airfare, hotel, visa, food, supplies, vaccinations, equipment and fabrics. expenses.

We gulped and committed ourselves to this cause – teaching sex workers, some formerly enslaved for years, to learn how to make some of the things Maria makes – potholders in particular – so they can earn a living in Calcutta. Maria began accepting mailed and Paypal donations in response to the messages from many people saying they wished to help. You can help if you wish, and right now. One woman wrote and jeered that this is cyber-begging, maybe so, but in the best possible cause.

You can send checks to Maria/India Trip, c/o Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. We will do everything we can to raise as much money as we can ourselves, but we can’t raise $6,000 by ourselves, especially in the time we have.  I suppose it is sometimes nice to be wealthy.

I am donating all of the money I have made from taking portraits and from my upcoming Portrait Show in September at the Round House Cafe. So far, I can cover the $500 registration fee. And I will certainly share the experience on the blog.

We thought it appropriate to give Maria’s many friends and customers and the readers of both of our blogs a chance to contribute first and directly – the crowdsourcing sites reach a broader audience, but they take as much as seven percent of the contributions. You can also contribute to her directly via Paypal – [email protected], please note that it is for the India trip. And thanks to those who have already contributed.

This idea has struck a deep chord, deeper than any I have written about.

I believe Maria will get to make this trip, an affirmation both of her and of this very powerful cause, the women and their children in Calcutta are in desperate need of this kind of support. Thanks for thinking about it, thanks for helping. Mara/India Trip, c/o Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.