I finally got out of the city. No more sirens, no more lawnmowers, no more gridded streets – only rolling hills, leaves bursting into fiery reds, oranges, sharp cold autumn air. I finally got outside. Some days, it kills me to say it, I won’t leave my apartment until the sun is already setting. Or worse yet, on the bad days when I have so much work for classes, I won’t even leave my apartment at all. Ken Lamberton wishes he could reach through the window of his cell to touch the saguaro cacti that grows in the free open air. I have the ability to leave my apartment, to go see those two squirrels who all day long, run up and down the stairs of the fire escape outside my back window. But no. One more page, I tell myself. It’s a self-imposed prison.
Eden Hall Farm was open, free, and so much fun. Mostly, I was happy that I had to be there. Normally, on Sunday morning I would wake up and start doing work. This was a welcome alternative. For me, farms are idyllic, an alternate reality, somewhere I’ll escape to when I’m done with this current lifestyle. I do admit, my experience on farms is somewhat limited. I’m not from a farming community, though I’m very jealous of anyone who was raised in that tradition. The word “farm” has two associations for me. “Old McDonald” farms – I think of the animals. These are the farms I don’t know much about. But anytime I visit one (this past summer I went to the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts,) whoever is with me has to literally tear me away from the animals, or else there’s a chance I’d crawl into their pens, curl up in a heap of muddy hay, and live out the rest of my days as a trowel-feeder.
The other type of farm, the one I’m more familiar with, is the kind I spent two months living on in Costa Rica. “Arbofilia,” it was called. A tree farm, aimed at regenerative, sustainable farming of the rainforests. We grew saplings in rows, quite like crop-farming you’d see here, then we’d strap on our machetes, dig the saplings up, climb a mountain, and replant them in the remotest areas of the peak. Thousands, we must’ve planted. Who knew how many actually took root? We were trying to recreate something that had been lost, do something that had been undone. There was once a paradise on this planet, a garden of beautiful trees and flowers. It had been logged, destroyed. As we climbed the steep cliffs, falling, cutting open our legs, insects attacking us, I realized that our efforts proved that the paradise was still there – our caring enough to replant these tiny little saplings – wasn’t that something?
We want the rainforests to regenerate so our world can become sustainable. I think of organic farms as sustainable establishments. In the same way that religious people are looking forward to salvation, I fantasize about abandoning my current lifestyle and moving to a farm, where everything is self-sustaining, clean, and organic. When I think of “gardens” I automatically think about Eden, Adam and Eve’s utopia. What did they do all day? In Milton they tended to the plants, made love, lived peacefully. That is, until the fall. I guess I consider gardening and farming a very paradisiacal concept. It’s essential to living harmoniously with the earth (if it’s done in a responsible way – maybe eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is like clear-cutting?)
I read what I just wrote – fantasy – and I think that while the idea of a garden being a utopic alternative to my current life is a little fantastical, I don’t think living on a farm is a an outrageous idea. What was most interesting to me about our trip to Eden Hall farm was how much we accomplished in only one hour. My parents raised me in the suburbs, and even though my mother loves her garden, she for some reason never taught me anything about how to grow plants. I guess I was too busy digging up all the bugs in the dirt to be bothered to put anything green into it. But I am sure I could learn the intricacies. Maybe if I’d been raised on a farm I’d feel differently, but after our trip, I was ready to move. But then again, I’ve been ready for a while. If only I could leave my apartment.
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