Friday, April 2, 2010

Farming with G.K. Chesterton




We finished plowing the 2 acre vegetable field with Indy and Dance yesterday.

Next up: laying the mulch and planting out the onions and early cabbages and broccoli. Also the potatoes! The Forsythia is in bloom on the farm. That seems to be our seasonal signal to get ready to put things in the ground!





The ploughman behind a trusty rusty old walking plow (and two shapely horses' rumps) is given to philosophizing...it took three days to finish our field, but in that time we all forged a bond by our shared work, and will never be able to look at that field that same way. Not only do we know our soil, and the lay of the land intimately, we are also now better friends with our neighbors! All from one little plot of soil!




G.K. Chesterton came to mind:



“Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it." - G.K. Chesterton, Commonwealth, 1933

"Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back." - G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World, 1910

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908

No comments:

Post a Comment