After becoming a parent for the first time, I learned in a hurry that you oughtn’t speak too loudly or surely about your choices as you might come across as thinking your ways better than others. I find this is also true of farming. Except in both cases it is pretty much impossible to keep your ways to yourself as someone always gets an eye on what you’re doing.
How much television are your children watching? Can you control the tantrums in the grocery store? Are you feeding them white bread or brown? Did you breastfeed your kids? Put them in cloth diapers? Teach them to read before the age of 4? Did you choose a private school, to homeschool, unschool, send them to an alternative school? French school? 4H? Dance lessons? Violin lessons?
Do you have enough grass for your cows to graze on? How big did your garlic bulbs get this year? Are you feeding them organic feed? Are you milking them once, twice or three times? What kind of fence are you using? Do the animals get outside? Did you rotate your crops this year? Are you certified organic?
All of these questions are so precious. They are so untouchable between one parent and the next. One farmer and the next. Because dare you say that one way is better for you – it may assume you think it the best way for everyone. Dare someone say what is best for them, you may assume you are falling short.
I once shared my opinions about a certain US president with a friend of mine in Texas. The conversation ended with her suggesting we not talk about politics. Unexpectedly (because I naively believed that everyone I knew in the US would share my views), I had offended her when I had honestly believed it would be one more way to find common ground. We had been friends for decades, since before we reached our full heights and it seemed odd to me that we would ever hold a different view on these matters. But we did. And how. And I learned that it was best to shut my mouth.
It would seem that farming and parenting have their trip wires as dangerous as any political mine field. And often the best way to keep the peace is to keep your idears to your own self.
Recently, Sara Miles posted on Facebook an opinion about the current discourse on our food system. Sara Miles wrote an exellent book entitled ‘Take This Bread’ where she describes the journey she took from being a secular individual to one who is a great follower of Jesus Christ. She was one of the primary inspirations for me to baptize my children last year and to get baptized myself. There was something so forgiving and accepting in the way she had come from so far out in left field and found her way into a middle she never imagined she could feel at home in. It gave me hope that such a shift would be possible for me.
Here was this woman who led me by the hand through her thoughts and expressions towards a certain religion. Ironically now she was questioning my passion (or at least my approach) to food. Her words: I accept all arguments about the importance of local vegetables and community gardens and living wages for farmworkers and sustainability....and yet....am I the only one who sometimes thinks there's a little bit of idolatry in the current discourse around “good” food?
Needless to say, carrying on about one’s religious affiliations holds its own very real causes for war in this world, apparently. No small discussion. Best left for another day.
Idolatry. The act of putting something other than God above all else. The blind or excessive devotion to something. Can it be true that some people (me included) have become so obsessed and concerned with getting food ‘right’ that I was creating a distance between myself and others or God in the process? Was I so taken with my desire to grow and provide “good” food to my family and others that I had lost sight of the duality that I was creating?
It is only recently that I have concluded that talking about food has become yet another taboo subject. It does not surprise me that what was once a novel idea (to eat more simply, track the footprint of our diet, try and make food about health and prevention of illness) has now become a national obsession that ironically enables others to cash in on the deal. In other words, local or organic have become mainstream catch all phrases for even places like WalMart to earn a profit. I even find myself buying the ‘Farmer’s Market’ brand pies in the grocery store chains because it makes me feel like I’m supporting a farmer. Even though I absolutely and totally know that the whole thing begins and ends with the name.
New questions have arisen. Who grew your food? Is it organic? Certified or not? Local? How many miles? What was the food combined with? How was it processed? What was added to it? What was it packaged in?
I have no 'right' answers to any of these questions. I only know that to speak of them is to tread on potentially offensive ground with others. Politics, religion, parenting…and now food.
In short, best I shut my mouth?
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
If I Were a Figurine
Lately I’ve been obsessed with finding animal figurines in second hand stores. I seek out the Schleich ones in particular because they are so beautifully painted, have some serious weight to them and actually look like the animals they are meant to represent.
After my mid-week delivery, when my van pulls away 1000 pounds lighter I sometimes try to catch a friend for a coffee, slip off to a movie or do a little shopping to sow my city oats. At the end of my run, I also enjoy looking for my little Schleich animals in the place I lovingly refer to as the dumpstore, Value Village. The universe and I have been playing a game (pardon me for bringing the universe into my petty folly).
Here is the strange thing. For many, many months, every single week, I have found one Schleich animal hanging on the wall where the sea of little plastic fast food meal rejects usually hang in bags. Each week I find a different animal. Never a duplicate. Always just one. I can count on one hand how many weeks I have not found any. The same goes for the times there has been more than one.
One day, my children and I cut down a small alder tree to build a shelf for ‘our’ animals. Naturally, the children believe these toys are for them and because I’m a good mother, I’m willing to share.
I have always been a serious collector. For as long as I can remember I have amassed things of a designated kind that mean something to me. Although the focus has been ever-shifting (from Princess Diana wedding paraphernalia to stainless steel kitchen gadgets) the momentum is always there to stockpile.
From the outside looking in I think people who do this kind of thing are odd, if only just difficult to understand. It is also interesting for me to observe people with no collecting tendency whatsoever. I don’t know what compels me but believe me when I tell you that I am compelled.
The irony is not lost on me that at this time where I have grown exceptionally tired of caring for all of the living animals around me, I take solace in plastic replicas of cows, pigs, elephants, kangaroos... If only I had one less live kangaroo to care for, my life would be so much easier.
So this week was a little different. Here is what I found (made by Schleich).
I took her home because I didn’t want to offend the universe but between you and me I thought a cruel joke was being played. I almost asked to speak to the manager of the store. This is not an animal.
What is kind of funny is that this summer I have taken to wearing a knee-length flowy blue skirt to do my chores. I have been on my knees in the greenhouse in my skirt, hopped over electric fences, chased cows home from the neighbours. I suppose I like wearing it because it makes me feel slightly feminine amidst all of the dirt and sweat. I would also cook in this skirt, and be able to wear it (if not covered with too much pig slobber) to the grocery store or day care to pick up my children on days when there was little time to change.
In my mind I pictured a woman much like my little figurine woman, a hundred years ago, settling into a piece of land, milking a cow, carrying buckets around, kneading bread. All the while wearing a long skirt. Who in their right mind figures that a skirt like this is practical for barn chores? I do, I suppose. Given the choice, I had chosen the skirt. (Can’t say I went floor length, however).
There have been many days where I moved around this place imagining myself as a little farm fairy, flitting about in all of the corners unseen. In my sprightly state, I would pop inside to grab a bite to eat or use the washroom and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Where my mind’s eye had imagined a bright, windswept mane of hair in a ponytail or in wisps around my face, the mirror showed something quite different.
What had once been a neat, high, tight mass of clean, collected hair became a fallen mass of dusty, disheveled strings plastered to my sweaty face and lumped at the base of my neck. I had the dowdy farm wife look just like my little plastic lady here. Perhaps this look was a real hit a hundred years ago. But I know for sure that you wouldn’t catch any of our movie idols with such a ‘do’. And much to my own chagrin, I seem to sport this look more often than I’d like to admit.
So what am I to do with this little lady? Does she go on my shelf with the other animals? Is this a sign to overhaul my work outfit? Fix my hair once in a while? I have to be honest with you. I despise this woman. She is everything I believe women have worked so hard for to avoid being. Subservient. Ready to do whatever is asked of her from whatever size of animal or person. Never to shine. Never to draw too much attention to herself.
Yet on the other hand, I idolize her. I am so impressed with what she was able to endure. So much hardship, it seems. So much relentless work and likely with ne’er a complaint. My grandmother was this woman. Still carrying water from a well to the house in buckets when my mother had first met my father in the late 1960’s and into the 70’s she carried on doing this.
I can’t help but wonder what my plastic woman is looking for. Perhaps something to look forward to since she just turned 40. Have her children run off across the pasture? Is her husband expected to return home from the fields? Is there a storm brewing on the horizon and she has to bring in her laundry? Have her cows hopped the fence again?
I don’t think I work anywhere near as hard as women did a hundred years ago. And yet I think I complain enough to cover a continent and a century. I have so many luxuries available to me. Affordable childcare, for one. A vehicle or two at my disposal, filled with gas, despite exorbitant gas prices. My health and strength. Good friends, excellent family. Hot water inside my house. Free healthcare! Seriously!
As projection is impossible to avoid, I actually imagine that she is searching for her identity. She is looking to find herself in something outside of her. She is looking for approval. For recognition or appreciation. She has forgotten how to find solace in the quiet things. She is looking for a guide.
You know, if I’m honest, I would admit that anyone who looks to find fulfillment in a retail establishment is going to be severely disappointed. Though, I always do it, week after week. And the satisfaction is there, though fleeting. It stays while I stand in line to purchase my animal of the week. But it leaves as quickly as it arrives and I am looking towards the next hunt.
From another angle, however, I have to admit that the diversity of my collection of animals brings me joy and some comfort too. Perhaps I am searching for my totem in the form of a personal animal guide. Rather than just one, I see a little bit of myself in all of them. Which is why I think it is especially important that whoever painted them (in China, not Germany anymore, it would appear), was able to take the time to paint their eyes in the proper place so their face is not unintentionally frightening.
Each animal holds an expression frozen in time. Perhaps they are holding one of their young. Perhaps they are yawning and displaying enormous teeth, mid-gallop or leap, lying down to take a rest, preparing to fight, or looking for a mate.
I think I will put my little lady on my shelf of animals. Perhaps she can be yet another guide for me, reminding me that my life is ever so much easier than it was for a woman 100 years ago. Advising me how to do the things that our culture has so significantly forgotten. Telling me that skirts don’t work well around electric fences. And that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to brush my hair once in a while.
She’s good there. We can all use any help we can get. And tiny pleasures should never be overlooked.
After my mid-week delivery, when my van pulls away 1000 pounds lighter I sometimes try to catch a friend for a coffee, slip off to a movie or do a little shopping to sow my city oats. At the end of my run, I also enjoy looking for my little Schleich animals in the place I lovingly refer to as the dumpstore, Value Village. The universe and I have been playing a game (pardon me for bringing the universe into my petty folly).
Here is the strange thing. For many, many months, every single week, I have found one Schleich animal hanging on the wall where the sea of little plastic fast food meal rejects usually hang in bags. Each week I find a different animal. Never a duplicate. Always just one. I can count on one hand how many weeks I have not found any. The same goes for the times there has been more than one.
One day, my children and I cut down a small alder tree to build a shelf for ‘our’ animals. Naturally, the children believe these toys are for them and because I’m a good mother, I’m willing to share.
I have always been a serious collector. For as long as I can remember I have amassed things of a designated kind that mean something to me. Although the focus has been ever-shifting (from Princess Diana wedding paraphernalia to stainless steel kitchen gadgets) the momentum is always there to stockpile.
From the outside looking in I think people who do this kind of thing are odd, if only just difficult to understand. It is also interesting for me to observe people with no collecting tendency whatsoever. I don’t know what compels me but believe me when I tell you that I am compelled.
The irony is not lost on me that at this time where I have grown exceptionally tired of caring for all of the living animals around me, I take solace in plastic replicas of cows, pigs, elephants, kangaroos... If only I had one less live kangaroo to care for, my life would be so much easier.
So this week was a little different. Here is what I found (made by Schleich).
| First Settler Lady |  |
I took her home because I didn’t want to offend the universe but between you and me I thought a cruel joke was being played. I almost asked to speak to the manager of the store. This is not an animal.
What is kind of funny is that this summer I have taken to wearing a knee-length flowy blue skirt to do my chores. I have been on my knees in the greenhouse in my skirt, hopped over electric fences, chased cows home from the neighbours. I suppose I like wearing it because it makes me feel slightly feminine amidst all of the dirt and sweat. I would also cook in this skirt, and be able to wear it (if not covered with too much pig slobber) to the grocery store or day care to pick up my children on days when there was little time to change.
In my mind I pictured a woman much like my little figurine woman, a hundred years ago, settling into a piece of land, milking a cow, carrying buckets around, kneading bread. All the while wearing a long skirt. Who in their right mind figures that a skirt like this is practical for barn chores? I do, I suppose. Given the choice, I had chosen the skirt. (Can’t say I went floor length, however).
There have been many days where I moved around this place imagining myself as a little farm fairy, flitting about in all of the corners unseen. In my sprightly state, I would pop inside to grab a bite to eat or use the washroom and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Where my mind’s eye had imagined a bright, windswept mane of hair in a ponytail or in wisps around my face, the mirror showed something quite different.
What had once been a neat, high, tight mass of clean, collected hair became a fallen mass of dusty, disheveled strings plastered to my sweaty face and lumped at the base of my neck. I had the dowdy farm wife look just like my little plastic lady here. Perhaps this look was a real hit a hundred years ago. But I know for sure that you wouldn’t catch any of our movie idols with such a ‘do’. And much to my own chagrin, I seem to sport this look more often than I’d like to admit.
So what am I to do with this little lady? Does she go on my shelf with the other animals? Is this a sign to overhaul my work outfit? Fix my hair once in a while? I have to be honest with you. I despise this woman. She is everything I believe women have worked so hard for to avoid being. Subservient. Ready to do whatever is asked of her from whatever size of animal or person. Never to shine. Never to draw too much attention to herself.
Yet on the other hand, I idolize her. I am so impressed with what she was able to endure. So much hardship, it seems. So much relentless work and likely with ne’er a complaint. My grandmother was this woman. Still carrying water from a well to the house in buckets when my mother had first met my father in the late 1960’s and into the 70’s she carried on doing this.
I can’t help but wonder what my plastic woman is looking for. Perhaps something to look forward to since she just turned 40. Have her children run off across the pasture? Is her husband expected to return home from the fields? Is there a storm brewing on the horizon and she has to bring in her laundry? Have her cows hopped the fence again?
I don’t think I work anywhere near as hard as women did a hundred years ago. And yet I think I complain enough to cover a continent and a century. I have so many luxuries available to me. Affordable childcare, for one. A vehicle or two at my disposal, filled with gas, despite exorbitant gas prices. My health and strength. Good friends, excellent family. Hot water inside my house. Free healthcare! Seriously!
As projection is impossible to avoid, I actually imagine that she is searching for her identity. She is looking to find herself in something outside of her. She is looking for approval. For recognition or appreciation. She has forgotten how to find solace in the quiet things. She is looking for a guide.
You know, if I’m honest, I would admit that anyone who looks to find fulfillment in a retail establishment is going to be severely disappointed. Though, I always do it, week after week. And the satisfaction is there, though fleeting. It stays while I stand in line to purchase my animal of the week. But it leaves as quickly as it arrives and I am looking towards the next hunt.
From another angle, however, I have to admit that the diversity of my collection of animals brings me joy and some comfort too. Perhaps I am searching for my totem in the form of a personal animal guide. Rather than just one, I see a little bit of myself in all of them. Which is why I think it is especially important that whoever painted them (in China, not Germany anymore, it would appear), was able to take the time to paint their eyes in the proper place so their face is not unintentionally frightening.
Each animal holds an expression frozen in time. Perhaps they are holding one of their young. Perhaps they are yawning and displaying enormous teeth, mid-gallop or leap, lying down to take a rest, preparing to fight, or looking for a mate.
I think I will put my little lady on my shelf of animals. Perhaps she can be yet another guide for me, reminding me that my life is ever so much easier than it was for a woman 100 years ago. Advising me how to do the things that our culture has so significantly forgotten. Telling me that skirts don’t work well around electric fences. And that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to brush my hair once in a while.
 | The Animals |
 | Lady on the Shelf |
She’s good there. We can all use any help we can get. And tiny pleasures should never be overlooked.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Whales Outside My Window
I awoke to a usual Monday morning. The children taking far too long to get their clothes on. The breakfast requests and then the changing of minds when the food is put warm in front of them. A load of laundry is started. The school bus arrives and we scurry out the door to meet it, backpack in hand, coat swinging from one arm, the heels of her boots not quite in place. There are dogs who want food. Pigs who are starting to awaken hungry. A cat calling from the barn.
I decide to take a trip. My husband's suggestion. It takes nothing before I know where I want to go.
Where did I put my tent? There once was a time where a tent was my home, the wilderness my office. I would sleep in it for months at a time without complaint, year after year. Now I can't find it anywhere and when I do, I can't remember where the sleeping bags have gotten to. The propane tank is over a decade old. Which camp stove works again? This lighter, this knife, this flashlight. Do they still function?
Digging into my camping gear was like digging up an old self that I had packed away almost a decade ago when we bought this farm. My life is wider now in so many ways. Instead of a portable tent, I have 100 acres of permanence to roam.
On days like these, in months like these, I grow tired of the work, however. Who owns whom? When I try to hide away I see the work undone out every window. And my tired feet climb again into my muddy boots and I make good use of my hands.
I am going on a trip. I know a place where whales roam but 10 metres from the rocky shore line. I can pitch my tent there. It is but 10 hours of driving away. If I leave now I can return by the end of the third day of the week. In time to get ready for market again and take my daughter to her dance lesson. Lazy summers escape us here on the farm. And time spent enjoying the warm days on beaches or hiking trails is limited to the short windows between the essential work.
But I'm calling it. I want to see the whales. Every September in the past I would make my way over to watch them loll about in the St. Lawrence River. My vigilance is an ode to my life in the west where I spent a decade of my adult years. You can take the girl out of the west but you can't take the west out of the girl. And I need my whales.
I listen to music and eat out of a cooler packed with garden fresh fruits and vegetables as I drive. I do this for 10 hours. Then I pitch my dusty tent. And spend hour after hour immersed in the purple glow that casts itself over this fresh water ocean.
You can hear the whales before you see them. They warn you to look up from your book, your day dream, your reverie and watch as their dorsal fin rolls over the surface of the water. Sometimes if you are a lucky a tail will curl into the air. These creatures are large. Smooth. Black. Gentle. It is impossible to watch them and not be instantly immersed in peace.
I see more than a handful of whales before I sleep, and again over a tin cup as the sun rises again, a few more.
There are whales outside of my window.
And no, this isn't from some hallucination one might expect fitting of an organic farmer. I really did go there. Outside of Tadoussac, Quebec. I really did see them. 2.5 days gone from the bustle of my life.
What seems like an eternity of peace and perspective was gained.
I decide to take a trip. My husband's suggestion. It takes nothing before I know where I want to go.
Where did I put my tent? There once was a time where a tent was my home, the wilderness my office. I would sleep in it for months at a time without complaint, year after year. Now I can't find it anywhere and when I do, I can't remember where the sleeping bags have gotten to. The propane tank is over a decade old. Which camp stove works again? This lighter, this knife, this flashlight. Do they still function?
Digging into my camping gear was like digging up an old self that I had packed away almost a decade ago when we bought this farm. My life is wider now in so many ways. Instead of a portable tent, I have 100 acres of permanence to roam.
On days like these, in months like these, I grow tired of the work, however. Who owns whom? When I try to hide away I see the work undone out every window. And my tired feet climb again into my muddy boots and I make good use of my hands.
I am going on a trip. I know a place where whales roam but 10 metres from the rocky shore line. I can pitch my tent there. It is but 10 hours of driving away. If I leave now I can return by the end of the third day of the week. In time to get ready for market again and take my daughter to her dance lesson. Lazy summers escape us here on the farm. And time spent enjoying the warm days on beaches or hiking trails is limited to the short windows between the essential work.
But I'm calling it. I want to see the whales. Every September in the past I would make my way over to watch them loll about in the St. Lawrence River. My vigilance is an ode to my life in the west where I spent a decade of my adult years. You can take the girl out of the west but you can't take the west out of the girl. And I need my whales.
I listen to music and eat out of a cooler packed with garden fresh fruits and vegetables as I drive. I do this for 10 hours. Then I pitch my dusty tent. And spend hour after hour immersed in the purple glow that casts itself over this fresh water ocean.
You can hear the whales before you see them. They warn you to look up from your book, your day dream, your reverie and watch as their dorsal fin rolls over the surface of the water. Sometimes if you are a lucky a tail will curl into the air. These creatures are large. Smooth. Black. Gentle. It is impossible to watch them and not be instantly immersed in peace.
I see more than a handful of whales before I sleep, and again over a tin cup as the sun rises again, a few more.
There are whales outside of my window.
And no, this isn't from some hallucination one might expect fitting of an organic farmer. I really did go there. Outside of Tadoussac, Quebec. I really did see them. 2.5 days gone from the bustle of my life.
What seems like an eternity of peace and perspective was gained.
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