Week 5: The Biggest House on the Block

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The Biggest House on the Block

Turning off the paved road, onto the dirt path that has always served as the property line between my grandparent's land and their neighbors', from the smooth, familiar sigh of the black asphalt to a relic of a simpler time. To the irregular rhythm yet constant crunch and hum as the wheels slowly crawl forward along the gravel road leading to my grandparent's house. 

To think back to my great-grandparents, driving this same road with the horse and wagon, and then all my family and then down to me, now, driving it in an old jeep wrangler with too many bumperstickers on the back (relics from high school, a more confused time), is an intergenerational deja vu.

My grandparent's house is big, 5 bed rooms, 3 bathrooms, and various sitting rooms and offices. But unlike the McMansions of the extra-burbs racing against the Joneses this house comes from a humble beginning. The original footprint was barely a quarter of the current, built in the late 1920s without electricity. Since then it has grown with my family. As more kids came along more space was added, screen porches were added on or converted into permanent rooms. When the accounting practice began it took over the entire basement. The room I am writing in was formerly my Aunt's bedroom and before that it was my father's and uncle's room and the desk my computer is sitting on is my parent's desk from college. 

This house is a farm house. Built-out as needed it is filled with nooks, crannies and redundant stairs, it has character. It's character is that of it's occupants, my family. This is where family has been born, has died, has laughed, and cried, grew up and grew old, and for me, where I have begun to appreciate it all. 

The crunch of the gravel road,  the squeaky steps, and the creaky board in the kitchen, these are the sounds of the memories in this house.

This house is far larger than it's square footage. And that is what makes it the biggest house on the block.

-Eric

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Week 3: Radical Hospitality

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Radical Hospitality

Radical hospitality.

Don’t let the word 'radical' scare you. 'Radical' is usually associated with crazy, fanatical, negative ways of being. 'Radical' people are often the ones who we read about in the media. 'Radical' is not something most people are. Hospitality, on the other hand, is a word with an almost ubiquitous positive connotation. It means friendly, inclusive, welcoming and is something that more people are than 'radical'. Radical hospitality is an idea conceptualized by the Benedictine monks in the 5th century and is one of the central tenants of the Rule of St. Benedict. A person who practices radical hospitality comes with an open spirit, soul, or way of being. Radical hospitality often is rooted in a person's faith or other deep personal conviction. 

Two years ago, which seems like a long time from my perspective as a 21 year-old, I met Kay and Annette Fernholz, sisters who are nuns who also farm, on a school trip with HECUA. They introduced me to the concept of radical hospitality. Annette, one of the sister-sisters of Earthrise Farm http://earthrisefarmfoundation.org/, said radical hospitality is "an expanding of one's parameters of life." Expanding one's "life sensor" to beyond their own being to include their family, friends, and neighbors. Truly treating others the way you would want to be treated. Remember in grade school when your mom told you to invite the kid who sat alone at lunch to join you? That is an example of radical hospitality.

I latched onto the idea of radical hospitality after experiencing how caring and open the sister-sisters are. Though, as usual, other life things distracted me from the point until I started living with my grandparents this summer. Grandma and grandpa have always been actors in my life, my family visited often when I was growing up. They are Scandinavian. They are mild mannered, polite, and humble, good Minnesooootans. They drink lots of coffe, black. They grew up "back when you had to walk up-hill both ways in a snowstorm for school." They are old, after all they are grandparents, oh excuse me, as of this week, great-grandparents (congrats cousin!), and are blessed to still have functioning minds and bodies. I knew they were nice people but I had never spent enough time with them to understand just how nice. Being around them I have witnessed the overwhelming kindness they live out each and everyday. Visiting ailing friends, cooking meals for anyone who ever comes to visit, serving on the board of a non-profit charity, and being incredibly active in their congregation. I believe that if a stranger wandered up to the door they would be fed (more than they could handle and then given some to take with them) and offered a bed for the night. Amazing.

“So amazing, I want to do it too!” Not so fast. 

Radical hospitality can be taught and learned and practiced. But, like anything worth learning, can never be mastered. I have encountered many barriers to my own radically hospitable living. As a student, how much can I really afford to give? We'd all like to donate all our money to help feed starving people but the reality of life is we can't. How do you balance meeting your needs while doing what is right for your neighbor? Just how far should the parameters of life extend? Hypocrisy exists in a life that is centered around one individual, imagine the problems of incorporating just the nearest 20 people to you or your entire Facebook friends list. And beyond that, realistically, it isn't smart or safe to open up your house for any stranger to waltz in. What about free riders? People who may take advantage of someone who shares freely.

So here I am, a college kid, struggling to live a life as radical as my Scandinavian grandparents.

-Eric

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Week 2

Rooted

Agriculture is a human/nature relationship. Sometimes the relationship is like a newly infatuated couple, puppy love, when the plants are growing 2 inches a day (by that definition I am in love with my basil) and just the right amount of rain comes at just the right time. Other times, Nature plays the one roommate who doesn't do their dishes. 

And just like any relationship it builds over time. But agriculture's time scale is far too large to be kept by a wrist watch or even the shiny-new Facebook timeline (you knew I couldn't go a week without curmudgeon-ing about social media).

Agriculture keeps time with roots. 

For a plant to grow it needs roots and, generally speaking, the healthier the roots the healthier the plant. When the above ground part of a plant goes away the roots generally remain. They decay into more soil. They become the land. Good farming practices make use of this fact by planting cover crops, crops meant to grow and be turned back into the soil, to build their soil structure. 

Human roots often are less tactile. Human roots grow on the timescale of generations. They build up the "culture" in agriculture. Human roots live through traditions of language, music, recipes, buildings, and stories. I have realized recently is how easy it is to tell how "traditional" a certain food dish is by it's ingredients. For example, a traditional Irish dish called colcannon is made with potatoes and kale. You can tell it is actually "from the old world" because the ingredients were attainable to the people who lived in Ireland long ago: both grow in that climate and both are ready to harvest at roughly the same time. 

Traditional cuisine, like other cultural heritages, is firmly rooted in their place. There isn't much citrus in Norwegian cuisine because there isn't much citrus grown in Norway. This makes me wonder: if traditions are born of a certain place, what happens to them when they leave that place? 

Living and working at the farm means I must learn about both of these types of roots, natural and human. 

I have learned that learning has costs. College obviously costs money. Many believe too much money given the importance of the college degree in today's society. It is a complicated issue. In fact, the cost of learning is embedded in many of our cultural sayings: "No pain, no gain" or "Always learn from your mistakes" to name a few.

My friends and I and our peers can all see the light at the end of our college careers. The “real-life” light. For most of us we see two choices work or more school. To me the cost of learning about roots is time. It feels as though whatever decision I make at the end of this tunnel will be a long-term commitment. Work OR more school. My decision to farm next season and learn about roots will "cost" me time.

Natural roots and human roots; the pursuit of knowledge of both is agriculture. And that is well worth the cost.

I am the fourth generation in my family to live on this land. Great-grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, parents, and now my cousins and I. That's a lot of roots. A lot of roots to learn about, experience, live up to, respect, be proud of and to add my own part to. 

As young person I struggle, should I be attempting all these "rooting" activities? Should I be asking my doctor if I am healthy enough for "rooting"? Does this path lead me away from my peers to an isolated place in the country where I complain about "kids these days" and the interwebs? Is now the right time to be doing this? After all, I've got my whole life ahead of me and I know I'm not done with college learnin'. More things to think about. 

For now though, I think I'll just walk the land, check my roots, then head to bed. 

- Eric

The History of a New Land

The plan moving forward is to salvage what we can in Prescott, most of the late season crops will be fine, and do any replantings in our new home in Ham Lake, MN at the Sannerud Farm. 

This land was homesteaded in the early 1800s, sold a few times, and purchased by my great grandfather, Hans Moe in the 1930s. Originally over 200 acres, now roughly 50 belong to my grandparents: 100 were given to my uncles and aunts who built on the land while the rest became Highway 65 or were sold. 

The rocks that made up the original farmstead can still be found in the West stand of trees and the second home, built in the late 1800s, still stands but is dilapidated. 6 people, 4 of them children, shared the home, which is just about as big as the modern day living room! 

Currently my grandparents live in the classic farm house. Built in the 1930s by the guy who lived here before my great-grandpa it had no electricity so before moving in great-grandpa installed electricity. Continuing the path of home improvements he built out one porch, and when my grandparents came into the house, they built out a few more and expanded the basement. Farm houses usually experience this sort of "room-adding" as families grow and it creates a nice sort of modularity about the space. 

One thing I am currently enjoying about staying here are the daily talks with Grandma and Grandpa about "the way it was" and juxtaposing that with the way it is. 

Some things that have changed changed for the better, some, I believe, We should miss. 

Americans these days generally have more "leisure time", something deemed a positive to society. Unfortunately, it seems this space in our lives is bombarded like never before with so many silly things to do that we, as a population, are more stressed out than ever before. Facebook, twitter, email, the news, youtube, netflix, pinterest and on and on and on. Not that any of these things are bad or evil, I use all of 'em (except pinterest. I don't get it) and many offer legitimate benefits to us such as organization and communication. But taken together they make this constant buzzing deep in our brains, an always-on feed of social information that we are drawn towards like moths to a bright light, throwing away our free time like it's last weeks viral video. 

Living at the farm I hope to free my leisure time from the tyranny of social networks and deliver it to the hands of a good book or learning skills. On my to-learn list are: canning, jamming, pie crust making, cooking, caring for my elders, how to use every part of a plant, how to make a meal out of what you have not what you can buy, how to live with people of different generations, how to think, how to journal, how to make soap, how to make root beer, how to make a good cheese plate, wine pairings, how to be a leader, how theories in school apply to the real world, and how to build a chicken coop. We all know we waste a lot of our free time on these silly world wide web creations, in fact, that is how I am communicating this with you. 

For me it took a major change in scenery, from St.Paul to Ham Lake, to my family's land, to start removing the social medias from my life. But it is easier than that, just decide to stop wasting your free time one night this week. Cook something new, learn a tangible skill, write a journal, start a project that doesn't pay back immediately. 

When folks in the grey-er generation talk about their childhood they talk about milking, canning, gardening, cooking, reading, and talking. What stories will we have to tell our grandchildren? 

"This one time, Sarah, like, poked me on facebook, then like, so, I de-friended her. LOL. YOLO." 

- Eric