Back to the land, again

I just finished reading The Year at Maple Hill Farm to Jonas as he fell asleep, and my overly-romanticized sense of farm life is in full swing. This has been an ongoing problem of late that was only made worse by my trip earlier this month to see my parents in Iowa. 

Having grown up in the Midwest, the daughter of a kid from a farm and now married to one, you'd think I'd know better. I do, in fact, know better. Farming is impossibly demanding, unpredictable, arduous work. It ties you to mother nature in a way few other livelihoods do, and you are thus choosing to cast your lot with a force over which you have zero control. There is no real rest. There is no real money; our seasonal Buy Local newspaper insert just printed data on Virginia farms, noting that the average farm in this state turned a profit of $10,000 last year. Um, yeah. If that is true, I am absolutely INSANE for constantly flirting with this idea.

And yet, I do. I cannot seem to help it. I know I'm romanticizing it. I know that I haven't even mastered my scrappy third-of-an-acre urban plot, so how could I be even fathoming of this idea? I want to travel, especially in retirement. One doesn't do a lot of traveling with ye ol' farm life. I detest commuting, and I like being able to go for walks in town, run errands quickly and indulge in ice cream and Thai food on a whim.

But lately, a sort of weariness has begun to grow in my chest. Although I like the convenience of living in town for running errands, the point of those errands -- the act of consuming -- has started to really weigh on me. The clutter of items at the drug store makes my head feel heavy. Target, which I used to love with abandon, now makes me feel edgy and anxious. Where does all this stuff to buy come from? China, yes, but think of all the molecules comprising it. Think of all the atoms of plastic and packaging and metal and paint. Molded into things we suddenly need, suddenly cannot live without. And then use up. And then discard.

Why I feel the need to live in the country in order to stop consuming is another question. One could dash one's consumption habit while living in town. So what if it is easy to run out and get things instead of making them or doing without? Combating Easy is a test in and of itself.

There is something of the rhythm of the land that is endlessly appealing to me. Growing up in Iowa, I loved watching the seasons on their endless parade. The way one fades into the next, imperceptively at first, but with gaining momentum. I liked how the sea of corn or soybeans around our house marked time with its growth and harvest. And it is this element of country life that is most enchanting to me. The very reliance of the uncontrollable force of mother nature is exactly what I like about it. It often seems to me that is a human's nature habitat and this -- this air-conditioned, electrified, refrigerated, automatic, preprogrammed existence -- is not.

Ever since Jonas' birth, my desire to run a homestead has grown ten-fold. It started with baking, an activity I've always enjoyed but lately find myself craving. It has moved to gardening and canning and I don't know where it is headed next. My only saving grace right now is that my house is so tiny. Any larger, and I'd have purchased a sewing machine already, I'm sure of it. I dream of a room full of fabrics and ribbons and beads and glue and all sorts of crafty things. I dream of a pantry full of jars of fruits and vegetables I grew and processed myself. I dream of a chest freezer overflowing with sweet breads and pies. I have clearly lost all sense of reasoning.

It is obvious to me that this back-to-the-land calling is borne out of some other longing or desire or lack of fulfillment. It is clear to me that I am being completely irrational and emotional when I ponder all of this. My mind has it straight on this. But my heart is still somewhere in the fields of Iowa, watching the seedlings emerging.

A Plague on Frogs

I actually knew the answer to yesterday's edition of the Geo Quiz on The World, a program carried on our local public radio station. The clue was an island known as The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean with a breed of frog called a Mountain Chicken. The answer: Montserrat, which Egidijus and I spent our honeymoon. 

The segment then went on to discuss how the Mountain Chicken is falling prey to the same fungus that has been killing frogs the world over. The guest speaking about the problem noted that the frog has been killed off all over the island, except for a remote valley. He and his colleagues recently traveled to Montserrat and removed several dozen frogs so they can put them in a controlled setting and hopefully keep them safe from the fungus until they can reintroduce them to their natural habitat.

I knew EXACTLY the frog they were discussing. These creatures were all over the island while we were there. They come out at night in such droves that it was nearly possible not to run over them, since they stood right in the middle of the road. While I am semi-accustomed to seeing small furry animals running across the road in front of my vehicle now and then, I was entirely unprepared to see creatures hopping in my headlights. 

The other memorable thing about the frogs of Montserrat was the deafening noise they make at night. The first evening we were there, we literally struggled to fall asleep over the din. We actually shut the louvre windows of our bedroom as many nights as we could to avoid this problem. I have a video I shot of our villa, in which all you can hear is the sound of the frog songs filling the night air.

And now, according to what I heard on this program, these frogs are all but silenced. I cannot imagine how quiet that must seem to the locals, like someone who grew up in the city -- reassured by the nocturnal noise of sirens, horns, car engines and echoing voices -- who then tries to adjust the relative silence of an evening in the country. 

But perhaps the most shocking thing about all of this to me is how quickly this extinction has taken place. We were there in October 2007. That's 19 months. In 19 months, the frogs on the island have gone from deafening to silent. 

I have heard quite a bit over the past few years about how amphibian populations, and especially frogs, are being among the hardest hit by global warming. From the loss of habitat to the rapid rise of fungal diseases, like that killing the Mountain Chicken, thousands of species of frogs are threatened or perhaps already lost. But, as with anything like this, such dire warnings are abstract to the mind. Until you know the answer to the Geo Quiz, and then everything changes.