The Back To The Land Store
The Origins
by Jim Smith
The Story:
In 1933 the families of my mom and dad lost farms through foreclosure in Aiken County, South Carolina and Ben Hill County, Georgia, respectively. The memories of those dreadful events were seared deeply in their beings. They told me of the abundance of their lives before dispossession and the hard scrapple life after it. Those stories had a profound impact as I thought of what I really wanted to do.
As a young boy, I wanted to go back and get the land. I also wanted to grow melons so prolifically that I could throw them over the lot fence to the mules, pigs and hens. I knew I could work dilig?ntly enough to do just that – I was a Smith boy – the youngest of five boys and a girl. In June 1959, when I was 15, I went to work for Colonial Poultry in Athens, Georgia. Trucks came to the dock to be loaded with iced fryers bound for Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The crew of which I was a member loaded those trailers. In August 1959, I worked 88 hours in five days; my net pay check was $132.05. Upon the arrival of that check tears ran down my face, it was more money than I had ever owned at one time. On August 19, 1959, I was sold a mule, wagon and harness for $125. 00. The receipt of chat transaction is framed and proudly displayed on my office wall. From chat day to this, my life’s work has been to establish a subsistence horse drawn farm with all the tools, animals, barns, land, fences and hardware required.
The intuitive act of buying the mule was the first act of reestablishing the agrarian lifestyle and system that would provide me with an opportunity to create a sufficient and sustainable process of living. There were many wrong turns and disappointments along the way. I paid my share of “stupid tax” although the dream never diminished and the way was hard. One obtains experience by making poor decisions. I made my share of mistakes.
Over the years more failure has come to me than victory. A 15-acre corn crop in South Carolina actually dried in the field; the leaves dried and were scorched by the hot wind in such a way as to create fan shaped designs in the soil as the dried leaves oscillated back and forth. Favorite and best animals died of unnatural causes, and hay got wet. But I have also known of bin buster wheat harvests. Seventeen acres of wheat made 41 bushels per acre that sold for $4.17 per bushel. Mostly heifer calves have made terrific increases for us. Horses and mules have worked hard and steady and well.
The Vision:
The scoffers announced then, just as they do now, that horse drawn is a direct route to ruin – impossible to sustain even one family. The conventional wisdom states if man is able to literally cut half a mountain away to get at the coal, then that is what progress really looks like. Never mind that the screams are poisonous and the land is ruined forever. The displaced people can just move to somewhere else. The wrongness of mining coal in that way and mining soil with machines that disks 200 acres a day is completely diametrically opposed to what I knew I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.
An Oliver #13 plow actually executes tremendous leverage on the soil when it is pulled by a team of horses or mules. Just consider working a 6 ½ acre corn field up with a shovel and hoe. Horse drawn farming produces bountiful grain, hay and other things inherent in the “agrarian valley” lifestyle. Subsistence farming in the context of the small agrarian community is the highest form of life. I deduced that concept with Mom’s and Dad’s influence and have come to believe it more thoroughly year after year. I found that I was joining a host of special folks who have had this idea long before me.
Sometime in the 1980’s it occurred to me that the tools and equipment for the agrarian sort of enterprise were disappearing at an alarming rate. One simply could not find hame strings, back bands, wooden wheels, corn shellers and the countless other items folks need for small, family subsistence farming. I found the Amish about that time and began to accumulate horse drawn equipment of every description. I sold some of it, traded some and kept some. Plow points in old hardware stores were purchased from eastern North Carolina to west Tennessee. Steam bent plow handles were stumbled onto in Missouri. Used dairy gear was available in Wisconsin and so on.
A black notebook began to store the names and addresses of harness makers, shaft manufacturers, grain mill sources, hand operated water pump folks and many other sources. I always insisted on buying the gear and using it before I tried to sell it. Can I get the leathers to restore the pump? Can this guy make a new set of quarter straps? Are you going to continue to make cotton plow lines? Without realizing it, I had accumulated a rather extensive list of sources and a barn and shop full of the “right stuff,” actually becoming a source of supply for other people who encountered the same problems. Where can we find these tools? If we don’t do this, who will? We were aware that many folks were doing some of the things we were; an ever growing number continues to swell.
The Store:
In the mid-nineties we selected the name of our company – The Back to the Land Store. We love the name, and we are passionate about developing the business. Our commitment to knowing the products and animals we sell is rock solid. We insist on a level of understanding that enables us to be credible merchants. When folks ask to purchase an animal we carefully interview them to make sure they are prepared to milk twice a day and that the cow will have adequate feed and shelter. The draft animals can only go to folks who convince us that they will be responsible and good husbandmen. Beginners are acceptable customers if they assure us they aren’t going to pull stumps and abuse the stock.
Our store is located in about 2000 square feet of our warehouse and most of our hardware is displayed, including an aeromotor windmill. The store features a demonstration kitchen with a state of the art set of bread making machinery, grain mills and an Elmira stove. Seminars will be announced on the website. Pam, my wife of 44 years, will teach the art and craft of making many kinds of bread. There is also a milking station in the store (not the kitchen which is separated by a wall) where Pam will hand milk one of the Jerseys and make butter, cottage cheese and yogurt. Bossy will allow everyone to milk with my wife’s instruction and get “hands on” in an intimate way. We presently have 13 Jersey cows and heifers – two registered cows are about ready to calve. As a matter of fact, I’ll check on them tonight at about midnight. I don’t anticipate any difficulty. There are about 3,000 more feet of space where we store plow points, tongues, shafts, plows, wagons, manure spreaders and a host of other equipment.
If you have done the arithmetic, you realize that Pam and I are in the autumn of our lives. However, we still have a dance or two left. We want to be found sharing our experience, telling young folks the truth, encouraging everybody to thoughtfully engage in the “agrarian valley” model of life. If we can sell you some animals or hardware in the meantime, that will be wonderful. But, if you only get information and encouragement from us, we’ll still be fulfilled as we operate our horse drawn farm.
We pledge to always be “walking the walk” and not just “talking the talk” of back to the land movement.
My son Justin has joined our effort along with Doug Smith, Joan Little and Brooke. We are daily breaking these folks in to present our line of products in their best light. Justin is the windmill guy; he can climb a 60 foot tower and provide the dangerous support that such work requires. Doug is the horse farming leader. Brooke is the website and marketing director as well as a firstclass helper in whatever needs to be done. Joan, mine and Pam’s sister-in-law, will help maintain order in the office and create an inventory management process. Pam and I will do whatever these good folks will not do.
Back To Nurture
(Why Back to the Land?)
by Pam Smith of Erin, TN
My vision for The Back to the Land Store springs from the vision I had for my life as far back as I can remember. As a five year old I “quilted” with my grandmother. My all-time favorite Christmas gift was a cooking set. That was before the time of the Easy Bake oven. It came with miniature pans for cakes, pies and cookies and packaged mixes for same. I enjoyed creating those perfect confections more than eating when I was hungry. After I had used all the mixes, my world was never the same.
From there I went on to making lifesized cakes, pies, cookies, and especially doughnuts. My family aways smiled and declared my creations to be the best they had ever eaten. With some experience behind me and my ego sufficiently stroked, I continued to pursue my cooking habit, punctuated by some gigantic failures. The most glaring one was when I was in high school. I had a date with a very impressive “college man” whom I had met at a seminar. Wanting desperately to favorably impress the young man, I made one of my, by now, famous cakes. It was a devil’s food with white icing. I remember it vividly – a picture-perfect specimen. I even remember noticing how perfectly shaped the layers were. David arrived at the appointed time, and my grandmother dutifully offered some cake to strengthen us for our journey to the movies. She said all the right things – all about how smart I was and what a good cook (heavy on the latter), encouraging him to have an especially big piece. Of course, company is always served first, so there was no way of knowing what was to come. Happy to oblige, he took the first bite of my beautiful offering. It is difficult to describe the mixture of horror and deceit on poor David’s face. I guess we have all been in his position at some time – that place where what you have tasted is so terrible that you can’t possibly look normal, and your head is screaming, “Don’t you dare!”
Obviously, I lived through that experience, but I can tell you for sure that I didn’t want to. David lived too, and it apparently was not enough to scare him away, because he was the first person (well, important male-type) whom I met at the University of Georgia. We dated some, and he had the good grace to never mention the incident. My grandmother and I think we figured out what happened. I made the cake exactly by the recipe, but unknowingly used self-rising flour along with the leavening and salt called for in the recipe. In other words, I doubled the baking powder and salt. A double dose of either of those would have produced a sour expression, but both is just more than one date should have to handle. Thanks, David, wherever you are.
Jim and I began our journey together in June of 1965 while we were both still in school at the University of Georgia. We had only one year left, so, why not spend it in marital bliss while we finished? Oh, ha, ha, ha. I can hear you laughing out loud. While you are laughing, you may as well know that, by August, I was pregnant. Such is the folly of youth. Immediately after the wedding, Jim reported for six weeks of ROTC summer camp while I worked as a typist in Atlanta . After camp, Jim got a job on a construction crew, without interview, because he could throw 8″ concrete block to the mason on the second story of the new T.W. Grant building. By the time we had to be back in Athens for football practice, we had enough money to purchase a very small mobile home that we set up on property out from town. I was on scholarship and Jim had a football grant-in-aid, so our tuitions were paid, but I don’t know from what source we thoul?jht the rest of the money was coming. Love does that to some people.
Thus was born our very first garden. We were able to borrow a Cub tractor from Jim’s dad, but it had no implements. The old shed yielded some mule ‘plows, but no mule
“Ah”, said we, “We will chain the mule plows to the tractor and make them work!”
Now, all we needed was a driver or a plow person. Granted, there were two of us, but one of us had grown up in the city of Atlanta and knew nothing of tractors or plowing. Not to be defeated, Jim assigned the tractor driving to me. ‘On Job Training’ doesn’t say it hard enough. I did pretty well until we came to the end of a row.
“Put your foot on the left peddle and turn, turn, TURN!”
Let me further set the scene. This property was on a corner of a major highway and another frequently traveled road. The time was March, still a pretty cool month in Georgia. I was seven months pregnant, and wearing Jim’s letter jacket since it was big enough to cover both of us. Our rig was unusual looking, to say the least. To add to the attraction, the plow was old and in much need of repair, which Jim had to do every few yards. He would stop, take the hammer out of the bib of his overalls, utter a number of appropriate words, and attend to the immediate problem. When we came to the end of the row, he would scream instructions, I would cry, and on we went, repeating the repair, turn, cry, repair, turn, cry routine, back and forth. After a time, we began to notice cars parked along the road as though a funeral was about to pass. It was no funeral, however, we finally realized that we were . providing entertainment for all those who had time to enjoy and a place to park. They were stopping to watch the hilarious scene that we had created. We didn’t make the paper and we didn’t get it on tape, but the event is, nevertheless, forever imprinted in my mind. We worked that garden, canned and froze vegetables and stayed in school. I didn’t miss any school because of my pregnancy, but I did have the distinction of throwing up in almost every parking lot in Athens, Georgia.
After graduation and a wonderful two years in Germany, I worked as an Extension Home Economist while Jim continued his studies at UGA. We then bought a house in West Columbia, S.C. where we spent four years building equity. That equity was sufficient enough to purchase a 33 acre farm near Pelion, S.C. We were landed gentry!
While we were still in West Columbia, Jim signed on to help a friend with a house that he was building. Being quite a craftsman/artist, Tab had taken on the task of building a large, work of art completely on his own and welcomed Jim’s free help. Actually, it was not supposed to be entirely free. Tab had agreed to return the favor when Jim built his house. I suppose he didn’t really believe that Jim would build his own house. By 1974 we had purchased yet another very small mobile home and placed it on the 33 acre farm. By now we had two more children, a three year old, Clay, and a very new Jason. Since the two small bedrooms in the trailer (let’s call it what it actually was) were not adequate, we built an addition, affectionately known as the “lean-to”. The seam between the trailer and the lean-to never really worked. Jim would fill it with tar time after time, but the weather would either be too hot or too cold to allow a tight seam. Rain in the middle of one’s house was a sacrifice that we were willing to make. Our friends from West Columbia, who came to call, were ever so distressed, but we would not be deterred. We parents tend to think that the children are oblivious to small inconveniences like that, but we were brought back to reality when our second grader, Wendy, was asked to write an original story. The title of her story was When it Rains. Ah, doesn’t that conjure up thoughts of wild flowers and gentle tapping on a tin roof? Wendy began her story with,
“When it rains, Mom get out all the pots…”
Now it was time to build a house. We drew our own plan that was similar to a house that we liked with the addition of a 20′ x 20′ country kitchen and three fireplaces – about a 3,000 sq. ft brick ranch. “O.K., Tab, we are ready. When can you come?” we asked.
I’ll bet you know the rest of that story – another folly of youth.
Long story, short, we did it anyway. Even though Tab did not come out or advise once, Jim had already acquired some information and skill from his apprentice work with Tab. The rest of the information came from building material salesmen, books and just figuring it out. We simply jumped into the deep end and started to swim. It was a long two years punctuated by a number of funny stories – funny now, but not so funny then type. With the exception of a couple of framing carpenters and the wallboard installation, Jim, the children and I, did all the work. I even nailed on shingles, and I don’t do heights. Not to worry, though, to help me with my fear of heights, Jim did a dance on the ridge singing, “If l Were a Rich Man.” It still makes my palms sweat to think about it.
During the building process, we continued to garden and accumulate animals. Wendy took on chickens for her 4-H project and Clay had two Jersey heifers. Jim bought a Clydesdale mare and Snorten provided bacon and sausage. All of the above except Wendy and Clay, were housed in a small barn that we also built. Except for the obvious, sugar, salt, coffee etc, we could often say that we grew everything that was on the table. We made butter and cheese and sold milk and eggs. Milking was on the very bottom of the list of things that I had set out to do in my life. Even my training in home economics had not prepared me for that, and further more, I didn’t intend to do it! Jim did all the milking until that day! He left for work in the morning as usual, but, this time he called over his shoulder, “I will have to stay in Charleston tonight. You will have to milk . . . . bye”.
Just like that – no apologies, no instructions, just
“You will have to milk . . . . bye!”
A lot of thoughts and devious plans raced through my mind that day, but as the sun was going down, and having been a new mother myself, I surely empathized with the cow in our barn. She was not even one of our pretty little Jersey cows. She belonged to a neighbor who had no children or interest in milking. We were keeping her for the milk. I don’t know what breed she was supposed to be. All I know is that she was very black and very large.
“O.K., says I, I have to do this, poor thing has to have some relief.”
As though I thought they could help, I gathered all the children to accompany me to the barn. Maybe it was because it gave me some sense of power, knowing that they were the only ones on the planet who knew less than I did about what we were about to do. Well, actually, there was another newbie. Our very large and very black lady, (whom we called the buffalo, for lack of a name) had not been milked before we acquired her, and she still wasn’t fond of the whole idea. And so, we began. I know there is a finite distance that one’s milking stool can be from the operational part of the milking process, depending on the length of one’s torso and arms. Whatever mine is, I found it. I felt that, if some of me was on the other side of the stall when she became impatient with my inexperience, I would be ahead of the game and could thus make my escape. She succumbed to my efforts, and we accomplished the task. As we transferred evidence of our triumph back to the house, I’m sure that every chest was pumped up as far as it would go. We had won the war! After all, bravery is not the lack of fear, it is what one does in the face of fear. Righ.? We couldn’t wait to tell Dad how we had met the enemy and won the war. Of course, the first thing Jim said when he called was, “How did the milking go?”
“Oh, great,” I reported.
“How much milk did you get?”
“About a quart.” I said with great pride.
“I’ll be right there.”
With that he checked out of his motel and drove straight home. I’m sure the buffalo was very beholden. Oh, well, he deserved it, don’t you think?
While in Germany, we learned to make a number of German sausages, so we transferred that skill to S.C. In addition to the vegetable garden, we had apple and pear trees, strawberries and melons. Peaches came from our neighbor’s pick-your-own grove. If truth be known, we were there. We had fulfilled the dream that we discussed on our first date.
For the past six years, Jim had been working as a salesman for a large company. He was very good at his job, so he often filled his quota well before the end of the month and had plenty of extra time to spend building and farming. After the house was complete, other people asked him to build for them. He quit his regular job and started building custom homes. We soon adopted the phrase, “Business is easy. People are hard.” Nonetheless, that went well until the bottom dropped out of the housing market in 1980. We owed only $ 15,000 on the house and a few months on the station wagon. In hind sight, that was hardly even a challenge, but, nevertheless, we panicked – sold everything but the children and the dog and moved to the city. It hurts me to talk about it. I’m glad I didn’t know how long it would take to recover what we had.
I think the year was 1981. We had just moved to the suburbs outside Athens, Georgia. Jim was working as a project manager for a high rise apartment building in Atlanta. He and the children were off to work and school, and I was observing the neighborhood from my kitchen window, as I finished up the breakfast dishes. The ladies that I had hoped to meet for coffee and neighborhood gatherings seemed to be deserting me. I saw them coming out of their houses one by one, dressed for work (they still dressed for work back then) and driving right past me to another life. It was a defining moment in my life. I took a good look at myself, especially my faded chambray shirt and my dishpan hands, and I asked myself why I was not out there climbing the corporate ladder and trying to be a real person. Until that day, I had resisted the message that I was not worthy to be called “woman,” if l were not pursuing a career outside the home. Questions like, “Oh, you just stay at home, don’t you work?” had not bothered me before, but somehow ihat scene outside my kitchen window on that day broke down my defenses. I succumbed to the idea that, indeed, I WAS less a person at home than I could have been somewhere else. What am I doing? I have a good education, my children are all in school, and here I am cooking and sewing when I could be Chairman of the Board!
A lot of time and life have passed since that day, the details of which I will spare you for now, but you probably want to know that I didn’t stay there in the “What if?” valley very long. I did take a “position” outside the home for a short time, but our desire to adopt a family member’s four month old, brought me home – back to nurture, if you will. I taught for several years when I could have the same hours as my children in school. I loved teaching, but I was no good at “bringing home the bacon and frying it up in the pan.” I could do either of those jobs very well, but I couldn’t do them both at the same time to anyone’s satisfaction. I could physically be there when my children were at home. I could get the meals on the table with some measure of satisfaction. I could clean on Saturdays. What I couldn’t do was enjoy my family or give them the time and attention that they deserved. And then there was that laundry – that ever present pile on the sofa begging to be folded and put away. I wanted to take sick days to fold that darn laundry. After all, it did make me sick.
My last year of teaching was done in a private school. Its only mission was to provide a good education for children of two rather small towns in South Carolina. There was no effort to be the most exclusive or most prestigious school – just a good education. We had a good building, good textbooks and good teachers. We did not have a good library, audio/visual equipment or music, art and P.E. teachers. May I ask you to believe that I saw, in that school, the best, most creative teaching that I have ever seen? Think about it, if there is a lack of money, equipment and other resources, good teachers will find a way to provide the education. I actually wrote a paper about this experience for a graduate course. I won’t publish it here, but I would ask you to consider what I have just said, in the event that you are considering home schooling. The most important requirement to teach your children is that you love them. That being the case, you can and will find the tools to provide, not a good, but a great education. Home school curriculum is so available today, that all one needs to do is go online to research and talk to those who have already been successful at it… But I digress. I did want to share one of my experiences in the outside world. That school only had one class at each grade level, so my six year old son, Clay, was a member of my first grade class. In those days and in that school, we could still have Bible reading, prayer, the pledge to the flag and sharing time as part of our opening exercises. I know this sounds like the 50’s, but it was actually the late ?O’s. The difference was that it was a private school. Sharing, you understand, meant that students could bring something to show or tell something that he/she thought to be important or entertaining. (I can’t imagine doing that today.) On a particular morning, Angie wanted to share…
“My daddy got after my mama with a gun last night,” she said.
Now, I was faced with a dilemma. I knew that story was going home with those children, and I also knew that most of those parents knew each other.
Trying to make the story unimportant, so they would forget about it, I said, “Oh Angie, don’t you think they were just playing?”
“Oh yea,” came a helpful voice from the back, “My daddy and mama play like that all the time.”
It was my own dear, sweet Clay. I’m sure Angie’s story did not go home that night.
We didn’t stay in the suburbs very long and I didn’t stay in the world of work very long. Even though I had grown up in Atlanta and surrounding areas, once I experienced the peace and freedom of country life, I was hooked. We bought a hundred acres in Buford, Georgia that we intended to share with our children and live happily ever after. We built a nice house with a deck that we boasted we could sit on in our underwear and nobody would care. I guess the rest of north Georgia had the same idea, for soon the county changed the nearby highway so that it was just off our deck and the Mall of Georgia sprang up a stone’s throw away. Now somebody cared whether we sat on our deck in our underwear!
We made our way to a part of Tennessee that still remains rural, where we set out to recreate the live-at-home program much like we had in South Carolina. Although a little late, we are finally home.
I don’t know what happened to those ladies who left me alone in the neighborhood. They became wonderfully successful, I suppose. I have met some of their daughters, however. Like Mom, they too went off to work, but somehow they are not as satisfied with their successes as their mothers had been. After having met the career challenge, some are succumbing to that natural female need to nurture. Rather than the Chair(person) of the Board, they want to be keepers of the home – the ones who create the warm, cheerful, accepting, attractive, orderly, soft place for their families to live together. Many want to go back to a simpler life style, one where they are in greater control of those things that directly affect their families’ health and happiness.
Then there is that group of 20-30 something women who bought all the home that two salaries can buy, and now feel trapped in their career situation, even if they would rather be at home. I want them to know that there is a way “back to the land,” if they want to do it and that even if they live in suburbia, they can still go “back to nurture.” As I was telling a friend about the point that I want to make in this article, she said, “I was a nurse educator for twenty-five years. When my youngest child was very young and I was dropping him off at day care, I became aware of other women who were staying at home with their children, so, as I drove to work, I made these comparisons in my mind. Goals and objectives made up the framework of my career as an educator – goals for the business and objectives to further the bottom line, while all of the goals and objectives of the stay-at-home wife/mother were directed toward the happy, peaceful, loving home. All of my efforts went toward the betterment of someone else’s business while my family got what was left over. I also realized that I really did not understand the meaning of “respect for my husband” until I gave up the career and allowed my husband to “provide.” He enjoys his roll as provider, and my son and I appreciate his sacrifice.” Her saying that reminded me that I had majored in Family and Consumer Sciences (home economics to those over 30) with a specialty in Child Development and a minor in Education because I did not want to work outside the home, unless it was absolutely necessary. In that case, I wanted to be well prepared. Here I was with the education and the mother’s love for her 2hildren that would set a wonderful stage for the family play, and I was considering turning my children over to strangers who didn’t even love my children for day care! Those were their most formative years. Was I willing to let someone else, who likely did not share my values, write on their hearts and minds? The answer would have been, no, if I had thought it through. Some of the time I spent working away from home was not even profitable. I saw myself as making a contribution to the family budget, when actually, if I had put a pencil to it, I would have found that I made very little after deducting expenses, or, in the case of teaching at the private school, we lost money. Sometimes I made decisions without all the facts or the Lord’s direction. Hindsight is always 20-20, they say.
I had another light-bulb moment when my boys were in high school. The famous “they” always say that once your children are in school, it doesn’t matter if you are not at home. I did not home school my older children, so I have the experience of having children in public school also. Let me say as hard as I can that there is no more important time for a mom to be at home than when her children are in high school. I am positive that just the fact that they knew that I was there expecting them to be where they were supposed to be after school was an anchor that they didn’t even realize they had. Most of the time there was a practice after school. I was either there with the ride, or they were home in time for dinner. That left very little time for funny business. Even when they didn’t have practice, they knew to check in and appearance at dinner was a must. Some of my friends laughed at me when I said, “We will always have breakfast and dinner together, no matter what else is going on in our lives”. “Good luck”, they said.
I was true to my word. We always had both meals together. I felt that we all needed those touch stones – time to share food and lives. I even made special breakfasts like Eggs Benedict and omelets. Their favorite, though, was sausage biscuits. I felt so necessary when Jason said, “Coach says we should eat six times a day so we can get bigger and stronger. If you don’t mind, make extra sausage biscuits so I can eat again at my break times”. The little toad was selling them for $1.00 each! Oh well, I accomplished my goal. We ate together and started our days with nourishment, togetherness, and prayer. The first time that I was aware that not all families at least tried to have dinner together was one night when we pried Jason off the telephone (not an unusual-event) to come to dinner. When he got to the table, he shared that when he told Amy that he had to go to dinner, she said, “You eat dinner together? At the table?”
I was astonished that that would be a surprise to anyone. As time went by, that seemed to become the norm, rather than the exception. What a shame. It isn’t the food that keeps the family together.
One doesn’t have to move back to the land to control one’s health and happiness, but it surely is easier there, especially where food is concerned. I believe that if we can avoid processed and amended foods, we can also avoid a myriad of diseases that plague our society. The family cow may be quite content in an apartment in town, but those neighbors can be so troublesome.
The simple/rural lifestyle also affects one’s psyche in a way that is hard to explain. It is similar to that feeling that we had on our first day of home school. We had not really realized what chaos actually existed during the morning hours when we were trying to have breakfast, get papers signed, make lunches, and practice piano all before the dreaded time for the school bus to arrive. The pressure of that schedule exerted stress on our little group that we really didn’t identify until that first day in the home school environment. Even though we were new to home schooling, we were already convinced that it was going to be a good experience, if, for no other reason, the morning stress was a thing of the past. Neither can I explain with words the satisfaction that I feel when I have gathered a big basket of produce, mowed the orchard, o: just surveyed the landscape. Sometimes I just say to my maker, “And all of this is for me?”
No amount of therapy could do that for my soul.
When I was younger, I got the biggest kick out of my mother-in-law saying, “I’m just thankful for work to do.”
What a strange thing to say! My friend who has recently had surgery that keeps her completely off her feet, would agree with Mom. A day spent doing exhausting work is also good for the soul. What about the children? Is there anyone over the age of twenty who would not agree that tending animals, gardening, and grinding grain is a better way to spend those formative years than hanging out at the mall, texting and playing video games? I could lecture for hours and hours on the subject. I will again spare you that, but do think about the value of a healthy, controlled environment as opposed to trusting elements of society and technology to guide your children in the way that you and the Lord would have them go.
I recently conducted a survey of my children to see what memories of their growing-up years were most outstanding in their minds. I was sure that they would say something about sports – surely that they remembered mom sitting through 1 ,487 baseball practices and games, 347 football practices and games, wrestling matches (even though I couldn’t see with my eyes covered) and Dad taking in his games down by the fence because he couldn’t be still in the bleachers. What I really wanted to hear was that their fondest memories were of the family at mealtime. Nope. Wendy said that she remembered building the house and projects. It seemed like we always had some sort of project going. Clay remembered “…living in the country, picking blackberries and the time that he and Jason stole Wendy’s pony, Blossom. They put the saddle on without cinching it up properly, and before they had made much of a getaway, the saddle turned around providing for them a perfect view of the sky. Jason remembered living in the country – how cold that water was from the neighbor’s well, served up in a metal dipper. He said that his childhood was divided into three sections – the country in S.C., the neighborhood, and Buford. The country was the best. His memories of the neighborhood were that there were a lot of guys to play with, and that was the first time that he learned that some people didn’t have chores to do, some families didn’t eat together and that the Smith boys had to behave themselves and do their manners even when the others didn’t. The fourth child was unavailable for comment. My survey didn’t give me the results that I wanted or expected, but it did point out that life in the country, when we really had it together, was the most memorable time of their lives.
Going back to the land or back to nurture is more difficult than just deciding that it is a good idea. Many who desire to change lifestyles, lack the tools and/or skills to return to land. Thus was born the “Back to the Land Store” and seminars. Jim and I want to share our experience and knowledge with newcomers. My mother used to say that wisdom is wasted on the young. If that is not true, then we may be able to share our failures as well as our victories with those just starting out with the hope that they might get there faster than we did.
My vision for the Back to the Land Store is a forum in which to share what I have learned about the nurturing side of life on the farm. Since I have lived in both worlds, I want to be the one to grant permission to those who need it, to come home, come back to nurture, knowing that you are embarking on the most important career of your life. What could be more rewarding than allowing your family to be your career? Are they not far more deserving of your best than someone else’s business? And those who just can’t leave the outside j ob, use these ideas as you can. It isn’t an all or nothing process. I also want to encourage those who are already up to their elbows in gardening, food preservation, grinding grains and bread making, meal planning and preparation, home organization, milking, cheese making, and all manner of activities that encourage healthy family interaction, as well as provide basic instruction for those who would venture back to life in the slow lane for the first time. I’m afraid that the skills required to live the simple life have been lost over the past two generations. I hope to revive them through sources like the SFJ, seminars, and providing “Back to the Land” equipment.
Our earnest hope is that, through the store and seminars, we will meet great numbers of folks in every kind of situation who are seeking and/or enjoying their lives Back to Nurture and Back to the Land.