Morning Glory Farm
(Page 2 of 3)
January/February 1970
By Rod MacDougall
Morning Glory has 1/4-acre planted with various vegetables that will suffice to feed the four permanent members through the winter. Any surplus produce will be traded with other hip farmers in the area for items Mike may lack.
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The hip farmers of the area have a deep and abiding love for the land. They practice organic farming. That is, no insecticides or artificial fertilizer. All garbage of organic nature is saved and dumped on the gardens. When the suckers run in the local creeks, they are netted and used for fertilizer as the Indians have done for centuries. . .these fish are considered "coarse" and no limits have ever been set on catching them. Pollution and poisoning of man's environment are two things the hip farmers are leaving behind.
We spent the first day in wonder at the undertaking, and early the next morning weeded a large part of the garden. The author was first in the garden to start the weeding and - because he could find no substantial argument in favour of staying dressed in the warm morning sun - stripped nude. The second worker kept his clothes on until he, too, felt unable to justify so doing. By noon men, women and children were busily changing their winter whites to summer tans (or reds, in some unfortunate cases).
The meals are prepared in the "summer kitchen", a separate building, so that the heat from the wood-burning stoves will not mar the coolness of the house in summer. However, the evening meals are eaten in the main house by the soft light of coal oil lanterns.
In the cool of the evening, the community exchanges its functional dress for beautiful colourful capes and robes for peaceful walks of meditation through the countryside . . . to groove on bright and limitless stars, the sounds and smells of the evening air and the meaning of one's own existence.
Another day, and a house raising at a neighbourhood farm. Will - a handsome, steel-spectacled and well-tanned man of nineteen years - bought a 15 acre spread ($450) and an abandoned log school house ($50) and - after having the logs dragged by tractor to his spread - proceeded to erect his new home.
All the people from the hip communities in the area gathered at his place at 9 o'clock on a sunny morning and strained their muscles to place the large, heavy logs into position. None had experience in construction - few in any job entailing physical labour - but the building was raised in one day of laughter, friendship and cooperation.
