There are so many things I have learned on a small farm. Time was, I would end every week and some project with the statement,” Well, I’ve never done that before.” Whatever the project, I was doing things that I had never done before, such as installing a woodstove, or messing about with the electrics on the house, or plumbing. Rather than call in a pro, I would have to handle the project myself, to keep the costs down, and to get it sorted out. It takes a fair amount of ambition to get things done, and prevent expenditures, and it takes a fair amount of poverty as a motivator. Probably the latter did more to move my experience needle than anything else.
I have watched animals and their behaviors for years, now. Each has their own personality within a type. For example, chickens and llamas do not behave the same, at all, really. But strangely, human-like behaviors can be identified in both. Chickens in a flock are very much like school children in their tendencies to establish order, and find a dominant one. Llamas or stoic like an old man in many cases, though there are those odd blue haired old ladies too, who are just not done being young. You may know the type.
One thing I am pretty sure of is that either Stephen King, or Sam Rockwell, or both, designed the Green Mile character Wild Bill directly after a Billy Goat. The attention seeking, wanting to be the center of things, determined interest in what pleases our Billy is perfectly played out by Rockwell in the movie. I have never seen a more perfect character archetype. I think if there were an animal that showed an ego almost as much as a human, it has to be the goat.
Pigs exemplify intelligence, to be sure, though it does not come with much planning or forethought. It is more of an ability to work out an immediate problem, or the recognition of who butters their bread. They know where their food comes from, and they can work out something like how to get through a fence. But save the water in the container for later, rather than spill it all out and wallow around in it, they don’t get. Immediate gratification is the order of the day.
Farms and rural homes are the sprouting spaces of great philosophers and inventors, and I can see why. I am not one of them, because my mind occupies with lesser things. Still, there is a pragmatism to getting something to work and having it done rather than buying the exact correct part from a catalogue and having it done to original, or right. Unless of course it is a valuable antique that is being fixed. The screen door? Just put an eye-hook latch on it to keep it closed. Same with the broken lock on the bathroom door.
I see things differently from here in rural America, and having come from city life in suburbia, and stuck it out long enough for some of it to take hold, I think I begin to understand some of the thinking. While I do not believe that any God made anything, I get the sentiment of Paul Harvey’s “So God Made A Farmer. It acknowledges the hard and thankless work of the individuals that feed America, and much of the world. Still, I do not get the mind of a Republican, apart from to see that it is born in teaching a child that life is hard, ruthless, and thankless, and that it comes with no empathy, despite the often recited Biblical teaching to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is self serving, which is the moral failing of that teaching. It does not recognize the actual feelings or experiences of another, but wants you to be good to others for reward. Some take that reward to a level of personal dignity, and I would most certainly be remiss if I did not acknowledge that. But that still does not raise to the level of empathy.
We find ourselves at a crossroads. We are prepared to remove ourselves from this particular bit of country life, and resettle in another space. The question is, where? The philosophical side of that begins to take shape in the above. Finding the answer, is most difficult. Where can a person live more to the left of the philosophical spectrum, but express themselves outwardly in their life to the right? In more generic terms, where are there Democrats living in the country? Along with lots of rain and seasons and moderate temperatures, and space for our llama family?
I am inclined to Maine, or to where we can have easy access to it, somewhere in New England. I know what grows me weary, and I like to think that if the good people of Maine can inspire Stephen King, then they are good enough for me. I would like an old farm, but in good condition. I mean, really old. I would like to have woods, and clear pasture on 40 acres or more. I’d like some sort of water access to the pasture. I’d like to have a winding country road leading to the house, where a kitchen hearth warms dinner.
I don’t ask a lot!