Really, I'm Not a Pig

Farming has been good for me.  It has taken me out of my comfort zone numerous times, and I’ve learned over the years that a shake up every now and then is a good thing.  Think about a tremor or a tree-toppling, power-outaging storm: once the dust settles, don’t you look around and ask, “Everything o.k.?”  When you discover it is, great, and when you see there’s work to do, then that’s what comes next, no questions asked.

It's easy to be zen-like when the animals are plastic, 1/64 your size, safely behind solid wooden barricades, and polite enough to let you finish your cup of tea

Every once in awhile I’m left in charge of the farm, and let’s just say, I pretty much count the days until I’m not ranchero-numero-uno anymore.  The work is good, don’t get me wrong, but the responsibility can be daunting.  Once, while sitting comfortably reading a book and enjoying a nice hot cup of tea, my oldest, then 8, ran in yelling, “The pigs got out!”  Not taking my eyes from the book, I replied, “Honey, daddy’s out of town...”  His eyes widened as he replied, “That’s why I’m telling you.”

Slowly, I felt the gears grinding to a halt, and it registered.

Is it so wrong for a mother to cry out, “CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!”?  I know the foot stomping probably set a bad example, but it’s not like he hadn’t already behaved that way himself many years before.

Just like in the storm analogy, I started looking around, wondering what to do.  I could call the neighbor, but then that would mean I can’t even handle my own farm, and why should a woman have to call a man for help?  That’s what that would be, right?  I could send my boy out to catch them, but he actually came to me for help, so scratch that.  Plus, back to reason number one...well, you get it.

There was no choice but to deal with it, and in the true inconvenience we call farming, the need was immediate.



Not a pig, and I am oh, so grateful



I recall the day my younger son was born.  My reaction when my older one ran into the room wasn’t, “Hey sweetie, come meet your little brother,” but rather, “Good God, you’re enormous!”  Well, I felt the same way about the pigs looking at them roaming outside their gateless pen.  I won’t bore you with the details of the capture which included my fearless dog, but will take you to the punch line…theirs, not mine.

In fact, I’d be lying if I attempted to give you the lowdown, because truth be told, I can’t remember the details.  Sort of like getting teeth pulled, falling from a tree house, or spinning off the road across oncoming traffic, the numbing haze of post traumatic stress has erased the sequence of events from my brain.  Only the highlights of my anxiety remain.

Which is why you find me screaming, holding a pig semi-aloft as the writhing muscular porcine vessel of testosterone attempts to devour my ear, knowing I have to do this one more time so BOTH of them will be back where they belong.  I vaguely remember screaming at my son for advice, which I’m sure I didn’t hear or listen to due to either the squealing pig, the crashing white noise in my head, or the cacophony of the two.  As I hurtled the beast back into his enclosure I caught the stunned expression on my son’s face.  A thought bubble would most likely have revealed, “So that graceless being is the one I refer to as ‘mother.’  Is it possible to make an exchange?”



A nice diet of sweet potato vines to whittle away their waistlines



As I caught my breath, he offered a bit of advice.  “You shouldn’t throw animals.”  Thank god my penchant for biting sarcasm didn’t emerge to attack a person half my size.  I was able to lower beast number two closer to the ground for his final descent, which was more palatable for all of us, despite the fact that the squealing screech-fest could have rivaled the war cries of opposing cheering sections led by Robert Plant and Ozzy Osbourne at a tension-filled girls’ volleyball game. 

Breathing hard, hair disheveled, and wearing an expression that was, let’s just say, nowhere near runway ready, I thought of the Talking Heads as I wondered, “Well, how did I get here?”  Now with things a bit calmer as my two dogs maintained order, circling the pen while I sutured it up, I could sense my son’s strange wonder about the woman he just saw man-handling the pigs.  Could I possibly be the same person who baked bread that morning, nursed his ailing teddy bear back to health, and cheered his every effort to make a “real” video about prehistoric beasts?  Let’s face it: a kid wants to know his mommy has her shit together.  When pigs gone AWOL pull her off center, it can be alarming, to say the least.

So farming has done that for me.  I can go where I’d never have imagined, and quickly run back to sanity once escaping it.  I still have an ear, and my son has been formally introduced to my limits, and at an impressionable age at that.  To think it took me until the stately age of 11 to discover my mother wasn’t perfect.  What can I say?  My boy is advanced.

Lunch Line

Lately I’ve been noticing how kids these days have quite a different perspective on food than was typical when I was young.  In my day, going to McDonald’s was a treat.  Today, kids do a pretty convincing vomit act at the mere mention of the place.  I felt kind of sorry for my son’s basketball coach when his team reacted with such vehement disgust after he enthusiastically told them they’d get to go to Micky D’s on the way back from a game.  Here he was trying to be cool and with it, but instead must’ve felt like all the kids were hand gesturing upper case L’s on their foreheads, extending them in his general direction.  They went, but some kids, including mine, chose not to eat.

And this stance didn’t come from me.  It’s part of the peer culture.  A couple weeks ago I took my 11 year old son and his friend to Subway, right across the road from their school, 20 minutes before a school activity was set to start.  The friend walked in, looking around like he had just stepped into a bizarre wax museum.  Before they ordered he asked, “Is the food here organic?”  Um, no.  “Is it local?”  No, it’s Subway, whattayawant?  He wasn’t sure.  Putting the pieces together here was a whole new experience for him. 

A recent issue of “Educational Researcher” had an article on nutrition tied to academic achievement.   The authors suggested that a deeply entrenched stigma of poor quality has been the accepted norm for school lunches for years, and big business contracts have kept cheap food (aka crap) on the lunch line.  But gradually, people have taken stabs at changing this.  Currently a local district is facing parental concerns that the food choices are too high in sugar and too low in nutritional value.  The parents are becoming vocal, and have garnered support from key figures in the mayor’s office and on city council.  The request is this simple line: Please serve nutritious food.  All kids deserve it regardless of whether their lunch is subsidized or not.

And there’s the rub.  For many children, 2/3 of their daily meals are free or at a reduced price, and school systems strive to cut costs in the interest of volume.  Some of these children actually receive all their meals at school, as dinner isn’t served in every household.  So yes, I’m willing to have my tax dollars go towards improved nutrition for these kids for the simple reason that they’re kids.  They’re growing, they’re learning about food choices, and they can’t do it on their own.  Just as I feel the school system should teach them how to write, I feel they should teach them by example how to eat.

And a cool thing about eating well is that there’s this added benefit of feeling good.  Who doesn’t learn better when their body is well-tuned towards it?  I have seen calm, quiet kindergarteners get out of control after their breakfast of sugar cookies (well, the label said “cinnamon rolls” but the actual item was a cookie with a swirl of cinnamon icing) and strawberry milk.  When adults scold children for acting out after watching them pump themselves full of sugar, I just cringe.  Bodies respond to what’s inside them, so let’s give kids some real power in the form of nutrition.  If standards are the end all and be all, how about we legitimately address nutritional standards? Perhaps one day we’ll actually have fewer people taxing the health care system with bad-habit induced health problems. 

No, don’t look away policy makers.  Pay attention!  The problem won’t go away by ignoring it or quibbling over immediate costs, which is the overused counter line.  Yea, it’ll cost money.  So does childhood obesity, diabetes, and a whole slew of health problems that will surely follow.  Instead of digging a hole where nutritional value gets buried, why not build a garden instead and get kids moving and eating right?  Quality in every way, shape, and form is worth it.

Happy New Year!

So which is it?  Am I late or am I early?

But more importantly, who cares?

You can make a big deal about December 31^st, but my heart opens wide with hope and excitement around this time of year.  Forget the bubbly, unless it’s a splash of pomegranate juice in seltzer after hours of satisfying garden work.  I recall one December while hearing Andy William’s “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” turning to my kids and saying, “No, it’s not really.”

Spring is a metaphorical time of new beginnings.  It’s a time of year when people feel so alive.  I would bet that most babies are born January through March, but in checking the stats, I find that I’m wrong.  July, August (thank you very much), and September have that status.  Having kids with January and September birthdays, I see that I’m attuned to both theory and practice.

Our final year of homeschooling, I decided we’d enjoy the full benefit of that beautiful new beginning called “summer vacation” early so that we could bask in the glory of spring.  Thus, sprummer vacation was founded.  The previous year I had administered end of the year standardized tests for my kids in late May.  Testing was new to us, as Texas didn’t care what we did with our kids (Thank you, religious right!)  After my kids took their tests, they were like, “That’s it?  Didn’t we learn all this stuff last year?” So, that’s when I decided we’d plan to move everything up the next year and see if we could finish our school year on February 28, just in time for early planting.

Onions are in, thanks to the help of Flat Zach

who arrived just in time via post. FYI:  In case
you can't see him, there'sanother helper
hiding behind our visitor.

Well, like others things in this great experiment called parenting, it worked.  I still had them read an hour a day and they had to willingly answer math questions when asked.  For instance, on the way up to Mt. Vernon they heard, “Washington is 212 miles away.  We are going 65 miles an hour.  In Fredericksburg we’ll get stuck in traffic for 45 minutes while listening to Coldplay.  If we start A Rush of Blood to the Head in Chancellorsville, what song will we be on when we stop for my mocha?”   Smart alecks earned no points by saying, “Who cares?!  Can I get a frappucinno?”

We loved our sprummer – lots of outdoor time, plenty of fresh air and exercise, and some well tended plots.  We missed it the next year, all being back in institutions where our connections to nature were more regimented.  But, despite the change, it was good to know that life sometimes gives us a break on what we perceive as steadfast on the calendar.  We fulfilled our obligation (and more) to the state in terms of learning standards, so what better way to celebrate than with an extended recess?  That’s how they do it, anyway, in the public schools around here.  We just got a better head start.

Garden Walk

A favorite time of day for me is after dinner, when I’m showered, relaxed, and holding a glass of red wine.  It’s quiet observation time, or as I tell my family as I head out the back door, time to see what’s what in the garden. 

It’s like slow breathing.  The energy of the day has been drawn in and quiet settles the pace.  At this time of day, I can touch the more obscure aspects of gardening.

And in one’s own garden, every leaf and stem has a story.  But when visiting another, it’s interesting to see what strikes you.

A few days ago I was able to enjoy my evening garden walk at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond.  Prior to their evening event, I was able to stroll through the gardens with my glass of vino, alone and reflective.  The first thing that struck me was the thought, “what a difference!”  All prior experiences at the LGBG (a gardener’s CBGB?  WelI, I was there for a concert….) involved moms and kids, namely me and my mom and my kids.

I could hear my sons’ sandals slapping across the footbridges as my mother called, “You’re watching them?  You don’t want them to fall in!”

They won’t fall in.  And if they do, I can fish them out and enjoy the memory with them forever.

But, in her defense, I was obviously used to my kids’ ways.  Any wooded periphery to a playground proved more appealing than the new state of the art jungle gym.  Exploring the unknown, seeing what’s around the bend drew them more than the curvy slide or fake steering wheels.  In other words, they’d pick what’s real and changing over the contrived, and playtime meant being leopards in the jungle rather than astronauts on a spaceship.  The play structure is the same this week as it was last week - unless of course there’s yellow caution tape blocking access to the ladder, which all of a sudden makes it extremely interesting.

Boy in Garden

Enthusiasm on Nature

NFS

And if you think about it, kids are nature – in fact, we all are.  As we explore and interact with what’s around us, we learn so much about the world and what’s real in ourselves.  Children do a pretty good job reminding us how to do that.  Our job is to let them.  And if they do go too far and fall in, fish them out and recognize that they’ve learned something.  Like anything in nature, they’ll adapt. 

Farmers' Market

As a homeschooler, I tried to get my kids involved with real-life active learning as much as possible. Aside from physics lessons on tension and force experienced corporeally, most activities involved more thinking and less shrieking.



Aslan, aka Poochy, aka Azzy-Doo, aka "You Rug."
Photo by Elisha Courts

 

One such activity connected us to science, economics, math, writing, community, and waking up at an ungodly hour; this was our foray into the farmers market.  The kids were 8 and 11, and decided they wanted to make and sell dog biscuits.  Who was I to say no?  We got a couple books from the library, checked on the internet, and found some recipes we thought would be good sellers.  The boys decided each treat should be connected to one of our three dogs, offering specific characteristics that would appeal to the variety of dog owners out there.  Plus, dogs were allowed at the market, so in choosing between three, we knew we couldn’t go wrong with our most important customers.



Lightning
Photo by Miner



Our border collie, Lightning, was the namesake for the powerhouse “Lightning Strength” lamb and barley biscuit.  Diddiwee Treats, which ended up being our top seller, featured peanut butter and oatmeal.  Poochy Puffs, named for Aslan (his nickname is Poochy) served the more, how shall I put this…density proportion challenged of the canines.  Yes, that was our low-cal option.  If given the chance, Poochy would down 75 at one sitting just to make sure they worked.  My oldest did the artwork for the treat bags, each kind represented by its respective dog, and wrote out the philosophy behind each type of treat from the dog’s perspective.  I have to say, it was a-freakin’-dorable.



Diddle, aka Diddiwee, aka Weenie-D
Love my girl, can't ya tell!
Photo by his royal cuteness, now 11



All the academic areas I wanted to hit were covered, but the social lesson caught us by surprise.  First of all, farmers’ market attendees around here don’t want to be roped into anything.  Forget eye contact.  They want it to be very clear that you do not have them.  The 11 year old learned that being adult sized, yet still a kid, means the perception is you can’t be trusted, unless of course, the buyer is a friend of your mom’s and then you’re golden.  The 8 year old learned all you have to do is say good morning and everyone wants to adopt you.  I learned not selling anything is a drag so quite often I’d nudge the little guy and hiss under my breath, “SPEAK! And make it SWEET!”  Ah, the farmers’ market version of the stage mom was born.

We decided after a few times that the oldest would stay home and stick to the artwork, which he did, and the baking, which he accomplished by asking me to do it.  The younger boy had no option but to show up every Saturday and sweetly utter “good morning” to everyone as they passed, or we'd be sadly in the hole.  We learned the downside to this was the grandfatherly type who wanted to tell the little guy about when he was his age, standing on the back of his cow picking apples off a tree after walking two miles uphill home from school.  The stories were great, don’t get me wrong.  It was the parking in front of our stand blocking money-paying traffic that would fawn at the 8 year old cuteness we had to manage in oh so subtle ways.

Not all were friendly.  One curmudgeon saw our sign for organic dog biscuits and barked, “Organic?  No dog would ever know or care!”  I agreed, and then offered, “But you would as a kind, loving, responsible dog owner.”  He walked off, not even dropping a quarter in our nicely decorated oatmeal container reading “Won’t you please make a donation to provide ORGANIC dog biscuits for shelter animals?”

Our venture ended when the state changed its laws about selling any kind of food.  We had to go get our biscuits analyzed in a lab for nutritional content, and pay for the official stamp and label.  This would run us about $75 per type of biscuit.  At a profit of just around $20/week, shelling out $225 didn’t seem feasible.  An artist friend suggested we charge our normal amount, $2, for the bag and advertise a pack of dog biscuits thrown in for free to get around the new requirements.  I thought it was a brilliant idea, and my son’s artwork had received a lot of compliments, but the boys felt like that was cheating the government which wouldn’t be the right thing to do.  To this day, I still don’t know where I went wrong.

So we stopped selling, and it was kind of nice to sleep in again on Saturday mornings.  The boys split the money they made and bought some things they’d been saving up for after dropping off the biscuits purchased through shelter donations at the SPCA.  Through the whole experience they purchased ingredients, baked, kept a ledger, stuck to their jobs, and learned a few things about sales from both behind the scenes and on the spot.  They still have the first dollar they earned framed and on the piano, and I’d say the whole experience in and of itself was a treat. Who knows?  Maybe they'll find themselves telling some kid about it way in the future when they're old and gray, remembering happy dog days gone by.

How Much Land does a (Wo)Man Need?

I live in a place that hasn’t quite made it onto your GPS.  If you try to get to me with the help of a satellite tracking device, you’ll end up needing to cross a river.  At one time a ferry would have been of some help, but Camille whisked it away while I celebrated turning three with a train of party guests going through London Bridge.  Had place-based education been at the fore, we would have been singing about the ferry washing us out instead.  (Much livelier than taking the key and locking us up would be my guess.)

I’ve learned to tell delivery and repair people that they really do need to pay attention and listen to me when I give directions.  Every once in a while, somebody “yea, yea, yea”s me and they end up having to head back into town to get a cell phone signal so they can call and say, “How do I get there?  The road just STOPS at the river!”

Um, yea, I know.

So they head back through town, cross the bridge into my county, and get there in ten minutes.  This is why I’m so amazed that my address doesn’t register on Mapquest, Google maps, or the FBI’s database (just kidding).  It’s not like I’m off the grid or something.  Today I looked it up with Google’s aerial view feature, and guess what I found?  The river.

So I looked for a business nearby and lo and behold, a sign of life.  By moving the hand thing-a-ma-jiggy around I tracked my way to my road and my farm (saw the garden too!).  I guess I’m not from the fifth dimension after all.  My kids used to get me to tell this story about our farm being on a different planet, and I was beginning to wonder if convergences and time warps had stuck around and seeped in when we weren’t looking.

And you’re wondering about the title to this post?  Just a play on the title of one of Tolstoy’s best short stories, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”  I got to thinking about this story when I saw the aerial view.   I’ve learned a thing or two about sustainability while doing this agrarian thing, and size and scale are key features.  Guess what happens on a farm if you get greedy?  Things suffer.  Good land to animal ratios mean that your pasture has time to recover so that animals have the food they need when they need it.  In the garden, taxing the soil by overplanting creates nutrient issues in the future.  Balance is key, and the first step in balance is to know what you have.  You can’t generate more raw material from thin air, but how many people believe that you can?  I’d say the number of people suffering from credit card debt could be one possible indicator.

I’d recommend reading Tolstoy’s story.  The answer to his question is definitely something to ponder. Forget searching as far as the eye can see, and look around you.  What’s keeping you grounded?  That’s probably all you need.