Scrambling for Ground

Whenever summer hits I get an intense longing for farm work. Digging in and savoring the loamy smell of soil after a summer thunderstorm, sweating and dusty above the whir and buzz of a Farmall tractor chomping through the hay, bending to the snap and crunch of picking leaves of chard and kale for market. The work of growing food makes me feel more vibrant, more alive.  I hoped that I would be a farmer some day, raising my children amid the fields, or at least close to them, connected to the land and disconnected from the wrath of modern civilization. My ideal future life looked something like David Fisher's at Natural Roots Farm in Conway, MA. When I met him nine years ago, one month before the towers fell, he was living in a little hand-hewn cabin on the creek bed of his 6-acre farm property, no electricity, no refrigeration, just a little wood stove, a tiny woolen bed, and the creek to keep his milk and greens cool. He farmed with horses, relying on living energy to work his land. He had some complex beliefs regarding the violence of conventional farming and modern culture, convincing in his certainty that one can taste the manner in which their food is raised and prepared. His lifestyle was enviable in its austere simplicity and raw, honest labor. It was easy for me to imagine waking each morning to the cool mist rising over the South River and his fields, the warm, musty greeting of the Belgian horses being hitched to the plow, the mineral crunch of riverside carrots, the shrugging of all concerns beyond that perfect little farm in the valley.

I hear that David Fisher has a partner now, and kids, and has built a home along the river, and I'm curious how they are managing to keep their lives simple, pure, non-violent in scope and spectrum. How does one manage to keep their family from being tangled in a spider's web of consumerism, commercialism, and technology? How can we, living in such an urban place, keep a hold on the rhythyms and lessons of the natural world?