Regaining purpose

The New Year approaches, but this is a completely manmade event. Christmas has just passed, and it is manufactured as well.

But we all sense that something momentous happens this time of year, every year. It is in our blood, we feel the tides of the planet. The shortest day of the year has just occurred. The sun has just begun to once more make its northerly trek. In the Northern Hemisphere, we are entering the depths of winter. The coldest months are to come, even as the days grow longer and the shadows shorter.

We are disconnected from our agrarian past. But on the few remaining family farms, ancient duties are still completed. The root cellar is full of apples, potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, onions, and winter squash. The shelves are stocked with canned tomatoes, green beans, corn, and peppers. Cabbage has been rendered into sauerkraut, excess apples into cider.

In the barn, cows low in contentment as they munch their hay, stored sunshine providing nutrition in these dark, short, cold days. The silo is full of aromatic chopped corn, more sustenance for these beasts which will provide milk and cream and butter and beef to the family.

The woodshed is stacked with cord after cord of split and dried hardwood. Burning in several woodstoves (fireplaces are too inefficient), the farmhouse is kept warm through the frigid winter nights and days.

All this munificence was accumulated with arduous work during the long days of summer and more. It may seem an embarrassment, but the store of food must last, not until spring, but until the first garden crops are harvested, perhaps six months hence.

Always working for the future, planning ahead, every season preparing for the next one and the next after that. We northerners had a keen sense of past, present, and future.

But it’s all different now. Cold? Just turn up the thermostat. Hungry? A quick trip to Domino’s or Stop and Shop. Bored? Easily addressed with Netflix or Facebook.

Our lives have become so easy in terms of raw survival. Not simple, but easy. The purposeful efforts of keeping oneself and one’s family fed and sheltered and warm have morphed into a general one of “get a job and keep it.” This has resulted in some significant angst, a lack of satisfaction, of purpose missed.

In this modern age, as our New Year approaches, what can we resolve to increase our happiness?

Here are some ideas, really quite basic.

1. Improve your health.

Eat a healthy diet at least half of which is fruits and vegetables. Consume whole wheat or multigrain breads and pastas. More fish and less beef. Eschew sugar. (That means avoid, not chew).

Run or walk vigorously. While 30 minutes a day is good, an hour or more may become habit forming.

Lift a few weights, increase your strength.

2. Socialize with friends

Research has proven that those with a wide circle of friends are not only happier, but live longer too. Join a club. Volunteer. Become a regular at a local coffee house or hot dog stand. There are many ways to make friends.

3. Expand your horizons.

Spend a weekend in your local large city (e.g., Boston, New York). Museums. Restaurants. Art galleries. Food for the body and the mind. Gain perspective, appreciate the variety and complexity of the human endeavor.

4. Adopt the AMP rule

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose. Daniel Pink in his 2009 book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” theorized the factors that motivate us. Meant as a guide for managers intending to inspire their employees, it can also be your guide to inspiration in life.

Autonomy describes our desire to be independent, self-directed.

Mastery is the achievement of solid skills, know-how, confidence.

Purpose is the application of autonomy and mastery to something that matters, to accomplish something that has meaning.

Apply these factors to your life, choose your career and job with them in mind.

Think about the 19^th century New England farm family, working hard but happily to provide for themselves. They ticked all of the boxes above, it was a natural outcome of their world, and resulted in deep satisfaction.

We can do the same, but our evolved technologies separate us from the natural world and natural labors and require us to work at deriving fulfillment.

Foregoing are a few ideas on how to increase your satisfaction in the new year. Only you can decide if it’s worth it.

A fickle winter

New England winter

Winter has been fickle this year.

Freezing cold, then spring-like warmth, followed by a double whammy of Nor’easters, winds battering our homes and felling trees. The bushes and crocuses don’t know whether to bud or hibernate again. As we don’t know if it makes more sense to break out our shorts or parkas. A dilemma.

Weather like this has never happened before, we are told. Historic. Unlike the great glacial ice sheets that covered the land or the warmth that melted them. “Has never happened in recorded history,” we are told. But recorded history is so diminutive compared to the thousands of millions of years preceding our epoch.

Yet somehow life has flourished. We have flourished. And most likely will continue to do so, God willing and absent a huge meteor strike. Which is exceedingly improbable, yet possible.

Winter, whether freezing or less so, remains a time for reflection.

Many years ago, we as children loved to camp out in the barn on a stormy winter night, the snow blowing thick and sideways, the mercury headed below zero. But the barn was shelter from the wind, with the lowing of cows and the gentle whickering and stamping of horses, a refuge. Nothing pleased us more than to cuddle a puppy in the hayloft, sweet smells of dried alfalfa and timothy permeating the air, wrapped up in blankets and snug for the night, while the wicked storm raged outdoors.

Now, we join in the New England glories of winter sports. For some, skiing mountain peaks. For others, snowmobiling on trails in New Hampshire or Maine. And others, ice fishing in the frozen north, or snowshoeing the forests trails of Rhode Island to Massachusetts and Vermont and beyond. Unlike our forebears, we like to stay active. Perhaps because necessary doings, milking the cows and tossing the hay and shoveling the manure, are no longer an imperative. Yet we feel an ancestral drive to do something.

But winter is also respite. All of God’s creatures rest, and recoup, and prepare for the spring to come. And when it does, life bursts forth.

And so we plan. Tomatoes, basil, parsley, corn, pole beans, spinach. The garden is taking shape in our minds. Traditional rows or wide rows, raised beds or containers. The form of our garden-to-come is subject to intense deliberation. But, while intriguing, it is not vital. Now it is mostly a matter of recreation rather than the bulwark against hunger it once was.

Yet, still, the garden is important. Symbolizing our connection to the earth, it provides us with healthy food and a healthy pastime. What wonderful meals we will prepare.

The weeks will grow progressively warmer, the grass will green, and spring will come. These tales of winter will fade quickly. Memories of shoveling and skiing and snowmobiling and snowshoeing will meld into gardening and sailing, golfing and other summer pursuits.

It happens every year.  And we are blessed to experience each one, silly not to recognize and appreciate each passing season. Time quickly passes. While life grows more complex, and our burdens increase, remember such childhood pleasures as cuddling a puppy in a hayloft. How could life possibly be better?

Dreams of Summer Long-ago

In mid-June it’s hard to remember that it’s still spring. Summer doesn’t start this year until June 21^st, the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. On that day, the sun will rise in Attleboro at 5:11 a.m. and set at 8:24 p.m. giving us over fifteen hours of daylight. Six hundred miles to the west, yet in the same time zone, sunset will not occur until 9:00 p.m. Those were the long days we remember, we who grew up in the country.

School out, hay tall in the meadows and ready soon for the second cutting, fragrant with alfalfa, clover, and orchard grass. These forage crops grew lushly, soaking up sunlight for the coming winter. An ancient method of storing solar energy, the hay was harvested, dried, and stowed against the cattle’s need for sustenance in the coming short, dark, frigid, barren days of winter.

It seemed that all of our efforts were directed to preparing for winter. Corn planted, to be stored in silos. Loft filled with the aforementioned hay. Orchards in bloom, with apples and pears and cherries to come. Gardens, planted only scant weeks before, already greening with tomatoes and greens, potatoes and squash, and, our favorite, watermelon.

All this bounty to be harvested, processed, and kept in some way before the frosts came. Potatoes, carrots, and apples into the root cellar. Tomatoes, beans, and corn canned, promising savory soups to come. A lot of labor – tilling, planting, weeding, harvesting, and preserving. But the payoff was in delicious, healthy meals, even in the dark of deep winter.

But it wasn’t all work. The neighboring farm contained a large pond, ideal for a squealing bunch of kids to swim and picnic and fish and snooze upon its sunny banks. A grove of young but supple maple trees, 2-3” in diameter, provided additional entertainment. Shinny up ten or twelve feet, then begin to lean to and fro. The tree would sway and then gently droop, lowering the grinning child to the ground, and rebound when released, no worse for the wear. Luckily in those days, lawsuits were not filed at the drop of a hat, so we were welcomed on the neighboring farms.

Further fun was to be had from our old balloon-tire, single-speed bikes, which, after laboriously pedaled up the steep dirt-road hills, careened joyously down the other side, spewing gravel as we descended. Braking was optional, laughter was loud, knees sometimes skinned. It was the best entertainment that could be had (short of riding the spunky horses that the city folks boarded with us). Yes, summer in the country entailed hard work, but offered many offsetting rewards.

We learned to be self-sufficient, but learned, too, lessons of community. When a neighbor was gored by his bull, our dad milked his cows and cleaned the stalls for many weeks. Dairy cows don’t accept any excuses – they must be milked twice a day, every day. This simple act of generosity was repaid in many ways, none the least of which was a tow up the hill during “mud season,” when our car sank to its frame, and only the neighbor’s John Deere Model A had the moxie and ground clearance to yank us out of the mud.

The world is so much more complicated now. Entertainment is everywhere, always on, always demanding our attention. Twitter and Facebook and Instagram compete for our time. Our smartphones ding and ping and chime to draw our attention. The cable news networks are all ALERT ALERT ALERT, all of the time. Everything is breaking news, demanding our concern, our empathy, our energy. It is so draining.

Perhaps it’s time, this summer, to return to the old ways. Even for a single day, a single hour, disconnect, drop out, and find a fragrant hay field in which to regard clouds floating in the blue sky, and nap. Perchance to dream.

The dignity of work

Fisherman working on the Belize River.

Belize is the smallest of the Central American countries, approximately the size of Massachusetts. But with a population of 328,000, the interior of the state is largely empty, with a density more like that of Arizona.

Approaching Belize from the sea, one is struck by the beauty of the country. The Belize Barrier Reef, extending nearly 200 miles from the Yucatan Peninsula in the north to Honduras in the south, is one of the most significant coral reef systems in the world. Mangrove islands dot the coast, and manatees and dolphins roam the coastal waters and brackish rivers.

A former British colony, Belize is the only Central American country where English is the dominant language. The inhabitants are largely a mix of Mestizos, Creoles, Mayan, and an international blend of Chinese, Indians, and Anglos from Canada, England, and the United States.

It is impossible to describe Belize without mentioning the historically important Mayan ruins that bejewel the country. Impressive pyramids, temples, and tombs surround central plazas, built with construction techniques that are surprising even today. Mayan achievements in art, writing, architecture, and astronomy are impressive. If not for human sacrifice, this would have been a pretty cool era for a time traveler to visit.

In today’s Belize, the economy is a mixture of agriculture, forestry (logging), tourism, and manufacturing. Unemployment is estimated at 13% and there is a shortage of skilled laborers. That shortage may well be related to a literacy rate of only 77%.

But all of these facts and figures aside, what is it really like? Traveling the interior, one sees many small farms carved out of the forest. These are not the tidy farms of New England. The houses are small, raised on stilts to allow cooling air to circulate; there is no air conditioning. A few skinny goats populate the yard, keeping the vibrant jungle vegetation at bay. Piles of stones and rubble dot the perimeter and mounds of half-burnt logs smolder near the encroaching forest. A scatter of multicolored garments flutter on a line, drying in the sun.

This may seem a bit bleak, but that is our projection. We cannot imagine living in a tropical climate without air conditioning – how could we sleep at night? Could we possibly survive without washing machines and electric dryers?

But in fact, the people of Belize seem quite happy. A fisherman casting a net on the Belize River offers a broad smile and an affable wave. A construction crew laying hot asphalt on a steamy afternoon all beam and wave enthusiastically. A waitress in a back-country restaurant cheerfully serves wholesome chicken and beans and rice with a large smile. It must be something in the water – these folks are just downright friendly.

We ask our guide, of Mayan descent, to enlighten us. “Yes,” he explains, “the people are happy. You are seeing the dignity of work.”

The dignity of work. Indeed. 

Instant adults

Farm boy driving a tractor in North Carolina

The glory days of agricultural in New England are over.  Long ago, the glacial rocks won and the majority of farming moved west.  So you might be surprised to know that there are 7,691 farms in Massachusetts alone producing over $489 million annually.  It is with some astonishment, then, that we are faced with new government regulations that will increase the cost of farming, increase teen unemployment, and at the same time reduce the opportunity for teens to become responsible adults.  What’s not to like?

Growing up on a farm was a wonderful opportunity to learn about cause and effect, personal responsibility, and how to actually do things.  If the cows didn’t get milked, they dried up.  If the cows dried up, the family didn’t have milk to sell or consume.  This was serious; if your chore was to help milk the cows, you didn’t mess around.

It seemed like many things were like that.  The kitchen garden fed the family in season and provided a bounty of canned and frozen produce to last through the winter.  But the garden must be planted, watered, weeded, cultivated, protected from woodchucks and rabbits, and finally harvested.  If your chore was to participate in those activities (and it usually was), the consequences of failure were severe.

Farm boys and girls, at the ripe old age of eight or nine, were often enlisted to steer a hay truck through the winding windrows of bales.  The older teens and adults threw the hay up on the truck as a youngster steered, feet not reaching the pedals.  At the end of the row, one of the older workers would jump into the cab to turn the rig around, and then the whole thing would be repeated in the opposite direction.   Although the lack of seatbelts, car seats, and helmets would today seem scandalous, no one was injured or killed, and a lot of self esteem was rightfully earned.

Farm boys and girls, when leaving for college or the military or their first outside job, actually knew how to do things.  They could replace spark plugs, build a chicken coop, responsibly fire a rifle, drive a tractor, and care for dependent livestock.  When entering the wider world, they had developed a sense of self confidence that was based on real skills and accomplishments.

But no longer.  In our zeal to keep our children perfectly safe, the nanny state is preparing to crack down.  The US Department of Labor is issuing rules to prohibit farm kids under the age of 16 from operating power equipment.  They would also proscribe “children” under the age of 18 from activities involving the storing, marketing, or transportation of raw farm materials. This means that they could not work in “country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

This is nothing short of amazing.  We consider an 18-year-old to be an adult, the age of majority.  But the Federal government is now usurping parental discretion, becoming in effect, a super-parent.    

According to our Federal betters, upon reaching the age of 18, these kids are entitled to vote, but don’t understand economics, having no personal involvement.  They can buy and drive a car, but have little experience in mechanical things and little sense of personal responsibility.  They can join the military and go off to war, but just a day before were considered immature and needing of great protection.  How can we expect them to be successful if we don’t trust them and give them opportunities to grow?  According to the government, they must become instant adults with none of the experiences necessary to do so.

In the old days, the family was responsible for the well being and development of their offspring.  It seems increasingly now that the government has usurped that role.  A good thing? Not likely.  

The Christmas trees of August

The "dog days of August” is not a specious phrase. In northwestern Pennsylvania, August brings intense, sweltering sun, high temperatures, and soggy humidity. The dogs, indeed, wilted along with us.

In spite of this, there was work to be done, and when our own farm chores were complete we hired ourselves out. A local entrepreneur, known to us from church, owned 30 acres or so of hilly Christmas tree farm off to the south. The trees were growing in rows that meandered up and down the rugged terrain, and more to the point, were nearly strangling in a sea of Queen Anne’s Lace, burdock, golden rod, orchard grass, and any number of other vigorous saplings and scrub. For the trees to form their proper shape and remain healthy, the offending undergrowth must be removed.

This was a complicated operation that had many moving parts. First, Mom got up early and made a pile of egg salad sandwiches. Long before the local food movement, the eggs came from our own chickens and the bread was baked in our own oven. She had filled plastic bottles with homemade root beer and frozen them overnight. The frozen bottles, placed in a cooler with the sandwiches, helped to keep them chilled but also slowly melted and provided icy relief during the hot afternoon. Packing everything up and securing to our old fat-tire, single speed bikes, we raced the four miles into town and joined a few school mates while the sun was just peeking over the horizon. Clambering into our employer’s venerable (even then) 1947 Ford pick-up, we fit ourselves in, a few in the cab and the rest wedged among several walk-behind power bush hogs. Then the trip south, perhaps 12 miles, to the remote hilly farm.

If you have ever pushed your way through a thicket of pines with bare forearms, you will recall the scratches and sticky resin that, per force, caused us to wear leather gloves and long sleeved flannel shirts even in these dog days. The heavy duty mowers made short work of the thick undergrowth, but even self propelled, exhausted us as we wrestled and navigated the steep, twisting terrain. We almost envied the other guys whose job it was to trim the bottom branches of the trees using hand saws. But in the end, the perfume of hot oil and exhaust and the thrill of reciprocating power made mower duty the preferred choice.

Finally, a break. Long draughts of water from a large galvanized can, who cared that it was warm? Grazing the forested field edges to pluck and suck the juice of warm, sweet blackberries as large as your thumb. Pulling some Queen Ann’s Lace from the ground, breaking the root to appreciate the scent of wild carrot. Likewise with small sassafras saplings, the odor of root beer rich and pungent from the roots. Then, back to work for we didn’t get paid to commune with nature.

Later, after our lunch and well into the afternoon, towering cumulonimbus clouds move in from Ohio and points west. The sun is doused, thunder rumbles, and an intense downpour commences. Our patron, sensing that not much more can be accomplished, helps us load up the equipment and we head back north, the vacuum wipers beating a cheery tune as we descend but slowing to a crawl as we struggle up the long inclines.

By the time we get back to town, the rain ceases and leaves a clean, fresh smell that enervates us as we propel our clunky bikes along. Home is welcome, even if some chores remain – those chickens demand to be fed in exchange for all those delicious eggs. Then a late dinner and early to bed, for tomorrow holds more of the same. Tired, but a good tired, born of honest labor, and sleep comes fast and deep and filled with pleasant dreams.

On being green

I guess we were green before our time.

Down on the farm, we recycled anything that might be useful. Clothing was handed down from eldest to youngest, knees and elbows patched and sewn with fresh buttons. Some of the other kids teased us at school, but we maintained our equanimity based on our innate sense of exceptional efficiency. Any surplus clothing or shoes was boxed and shipped, once or twice a year, to exotic, far-flung relatives in Sicily. I don’t know if they were teased or admired, but at least they had good American denim for school, patched as it may have been.

Vegetable peelings and table scraps (meat and fats excluded, but including eggshells), went into the compost heap. When properly tended, the compost literally combusted, but unhurriedly, and reduced its contents to a rich, black soil, populated by enormous quantities of ravenous red earthworms whose effluence enriched that soil. Any excess meats and fats, not suitable for compost, were supplemental delicacies for the farm dogs who were responsible for rodent control, protecting the chickens from varmints, and general security and hilarity.

When baking foods in the oven, any other item that might hitch a ride took advantage of the heat. For instance, a pot roast bakes for 3-4 hours, and several loaves of bread could share the last 30 minutes. A fabulous book expounding this principle is “How to Cook a Wolf”, by M.F.K. Fisher, a prolific food writer of the mid-twentieth century who offered instruction in efficiency and good cheer to a war-weary America.

Bottled soda pop was a luxury. Kool-Aid made from our own, delicious well water and the powdered mix was a favorite beverage. And Kool-Aid poured into ice cube trays with popsicle sticks inserted yielded tasty, cooling, frozen treats a few hours later. No air conditioning in summer, but broad porches welcomed picnic-style suppers in the waning heat of the day as the sun surrendered to the night, crickets serenading loudly, and heat lightening flickering on the distant horizon.

Lights were turned off when not needed. The upstairs rooms were not heated in winter, but thick layers of blankets provided more than adequate warmth. In summer, cooling was provided only by ventilation from the open, screened windows.

Finally, sternly instructed to sleep, at least one wayward child eagerly consumed the transportation and mystery of good books, under the blankets, burning up a flashlight’s D-cell batteries.

In spite of that, overall, we were deeply green. We just didn’t know it.

A season in the sun

Although growing up in the age of tractors, have you ever seen a team of horses turn a furrow? Their heaving breath and clomping hoofs work hard to cleave the soil. Have you felt your bare toes melt into the crumbled, rich earth?

Have you seen a belching tractor pull a gang of moldboard plows, each turning a fresh furrow of rich, fragrant earth, the plows themselves shiny as mirrors from the friction of the soil? These are the memories of our agricultural past. Man’s struggle to till the soil has advanced from pointed sticks to hoes to horse drawn plows and then tractors and crawlers. There seems to be no end of our escalation of power, our ability to rend and tend the earth.

After the first plowing in May, when the soil is still moist but dry enough to be pliable, the turned furrows are allowed to dry in the sun. Flocks of birds swoop down to devour the bonanza of exposed earthworms, but many more of the earth-richening creatures escape below to safety .

When the earth has dried a bit, gangs of steel discs are pulled across the fields to break down and level the soil. If you were to walk into this biologically active sea, you would sink to your ankles in a velvety, fragrant mass. There is nowhere on Earth like a field just prepared to be planted. The sheer potential of the soil, the thousands of tons of corn or wheat or potatoes to come, waiting only for adequate sun and rain.

The seeds are planted in straight rows with military precision. By the end of May, green tendrils rise in discernible rows as the early crop begins to assert itself. Taking sustenance from rain, sun, and soil, the potential of many tons of crop yield begins to assert itself. By July the crop is over knee high and vibrant green. In August, just taking a tinge of brown. In September, ready to harvest.

If the autumn rains come, mud is the enemy. Tractors gang up to haul harvesters and combines through the muddy fields. The crop must be dry enough to avoid must and rot, but leaving it in the field to decompose is not an acceptable option. Whole corn stalks can be fed into choppers that blow huge silos full of aromatic silage to feed the cattle over the long winter.

In December, January, and February, when deep snow and the cold of winter blanket the land, the barns are warm with the lowing of cattle, consuming their rations of sunshine from the silos. Soon enough, though, new furrows need be plowed.

But for now, a little rest.