I was lamenting to my neighbor recently that farming was a whole lot
more work than I knew before we started this farming project. With a
straight face, she looked at me and said that my husband and I were not
farmers at all, but that we were pilgrims.
You see, the farm that we
bought hadn’t been farmed in about 30 years. Doesn’t impress you
into that field and actually clear ten to thirty years’ worth of growth. Let me
tell you, trees and their branches are a whole lot heavier than you
would think. Those branches look so elegant and beautiful, swaying in
that breeze. But when they come crashing down off of that tree onto
your head because your husband is a chain-sawing demon and you
mistakenly got too close while clearing his detritus and you get
knocked to the ground, it is just a little surprising. That branch
didn’t look that substantial when it was up on the side of that tree.
And then you try to drag that branch over to the pile of branches that
will be burned later, and you can work up quite a sweat. Tree clearing
is not for wimps. Clearing the frontier is such a romantic idea,
until your husband puts you to work actually clearing the frontier.
My neighbor rightly dubbed us the pilgrims because of the extent to
which we have to work just to see the dirt beneath the trees and
shrubs. I can honestly say that the thought of coming to the New World
and clearing it and settling here was daunting when I first studied
Pilgrims in the fourth grade, but now they are my heroes. They cleared
the land with just handsaws and axes. They then used those limbs to
build houses, all the while hauling their water from creeks and making do in the wilderness. And through it all, they wore heavy wool clothes,
rain or shine, winter or summer. Compared to them, Superman is a
pansy. Heck, how hard can it be to save the world when you have super
powers and can fly? But can you cut down a tree in less than a day
using just an axe? And not have it fall on you, your house, or your
wife? Now that’s difficult!
Next time, I’d sure appreciate it if my husband wouldn’t just look
down at me lying under the foliage of the branch that just fell on me
and ask our son, “What is mom doing under there? Taking a nap?” Maybe a
little more concern on his part about my welfare while I was lying
under those branches would give me reassurance that I will survive this
pilgrim experience that he calls farming. I think the next time, it’s
my turn with the chainsaw and he can do the clean up.
