Rural Wisdom
The times when life has really spun our wheels
by
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When Spring Arrives
(Beliefs)
Tonight there is a new moon, a big moon the Indians call the “Beaver Moon” or the “Frogs Return Moon.” Springtime is upon us, and I am filled with this feeling of joy and hope and anticipation that comes with all new beginnings. It recalls for me the many springtimes of my childhood, of working on the farm and the blessed arrival of the sun after the hard bitterness of our extended Minnesota winters. I remember those first brief warm days when the cats would stretch out and bask in the wind-sheltered sun on the south side of the silo. They would luxuriate there; their night eyes squinted shut against the brilliance until their coats became too hot to touch. I'd sit and pet and disturb their sunbath. They'd rub their face and back and tail against me and contribute far more energy to the petting then I did.
With my back pressed against the snow-white wall of the silo room, I was pleased by the warm grass; my eyes were closed against the brilliance, and I'd sit with a cat on my chest, its motor rumbling and cycling in time to my breathing and my stroking. Then the winter, still in the ground, would begin seeping through my trousers, chilling my bottom, and encouraging me to get on with spring, to get on with farming, and I’d leave the cats to their soak.
Spring was the time we’d open the garage, the corncrib, the machine shed or wherever we had stored the tractor and plow and disk, and roll or pull them into the sun, all shiny and greased and newly painted after a winter’s overhaul. Then we’d head for the fields to turn the earth and discover what lay beneath its surface.
As a child, I’d walk behind the plow discovering grubs and gopher holes, angleworms and night crawlers. Dad would stop the tractor after a lap around the field to point out the straightness of his furl and answer my thousand questions about why some soil was brown and some black and hear my excitedness about the salamander the plow uncovered. It was a time of wonder and appreciation for the life that earth yields; a time of ignorance about the terror and trauma in the other parts of the world; a time of faith and trust in the two wise souls who agreed to be my parents and bequeath me the foundations for this marvelous vehicle called my body.
It was a time when I lived more in tune with the rhythm of nature. There was an urgency to spring. It was our opportunity to invest in a fall’s harvest, and we needed to prepare the land for seed.
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About the Book
In this delightful memoir of short stories and essays, the author uses the rural wisdom he gained in his youth to explain time, forgiveness, and the crush of change; and applies it the challenge of life in the big city. Here, there is history on a clothesline, wisdom in a thunderstorm, and appreciation in a car ride. His humor includes a wild turkey that lived in a doghouse with an old German Shepherd, escaped wild pigs, and the etiquette of trapping city mice. Follow the author as he explores the reverence of the beekeeper, the absolute quiet of the farm between dark and dawn, and compares today’s body-piercings to the nose jewelry used on the farm. The theme of the book reveals that each one of us wants to be loved, appreciated, and to contribute to life. But along the way we ignore our opportunities, and yet, life continually gives us second chances despite our inattentiveness. Read and enjoy the author’s appreciation of the richness of ourselves.
About the Author
Another holiday is over and as I leave the farm of my youth and return to my home in the city, I am pumped full of turkey, dressing, pies and all the goodness of family--good family. When I was growing up, I resented the ordinariness of my family. It was stable, secure, and comfortable. Since there were ten of us it was never lonely or uneventful. It was us. Then when I became a teenager, family was an embarrassment. Mom and Dad were country folk. True, they were thoughtful, kind, dependable, respected, loving and giving; but they were as boring as Mom’s blue-ribbon, homemade bread. It was there every day, and I was bored with it. Give me some store-bought white bread without all that graininess, and you’d think I had been given candy.
Finally, at the age of seventeen, it was time for me to leave the family and the farm. I liked being on my own--going places, doing things, being an adult. However, I was never able to recreate the feeling of family; that feeling of home, of belonging. Sure, strangers treated me better than family, although they never treated me with love. Sure, strangers never interfered, although I’m not sure they cared. Sure, strangers took me for face value and gave me a fresh start, although they never asked who I was or what was my story.
So I banged around for years. I didn’t write home. I didn’t call. I was searching for something that was missing. I completed the military, graduated from college, and started a family before I discovered that what I was looking for was what I had left behind--family.
What I noticed in those searching years was that my family, Mom and Dad and all those siblings, weren’t common and ordinary. They were rare, unique and extraordinary. I was raised in one of those impossible idyllic times, surrounded by idyllic (and sometimes impossible) people. It was country living at its best, because it was country living in family and in love.