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March 08, 2006
Heifer Project and heartache
I spent the first month of my year off between high school and college at Overlook Farm in Rutland, Mass. The farm is run by Heifer Project as a demostration of the sustainable agriculture and livestock breeding that it puts into practice in scores of countries around the world. As such, it is home to a delightfully diverse cast of animals and environments. Peter the Yak keeps watch over a yurt. A pair of water buffalo and a mess of pigs live under/near a Thai wetland house. Six llamas are psychologically hemmed in by stone walls they could easily jump (simple creatures don't question the boundaries placed before them) in Little Peru. In between, there are chickens of every breed, beautiful horses, cows, goats, sheep, cats and herding dogs.
My month on the farm was as invigorating as it was thoroughly relaxing. After six years of prep school, I was tired. Tired of doing the kind of work that Marx considered alienating: work done to satisfy some distant end. Tests, papers, insurmountable reading, 14 hour days, unending inadequacy. I needed a break and I needed to work, to exert myself, at the same time.
So I traded exams and ideas for simple labor. Up at 6, morning chores (milking, mucking, herding, hauling and cleaning), building walls, fixing fences, hoisting hay, and everything else that happens on a farm. And it did everything that I could have asked, and more. In the valley beyond our pasture, I saw not only rolling mist but also a new beginning as each day broke. I'll never forget what I learned about work, and about my capability to reflect. I hope I can go back someday.
So I was understandably sad this morning when I read that the Overlook Farm barn burned down yesterday, killing 10 goats, dozens of chickens, and a duck. The staff managed to save an equal number, including the horses, the rest of the goats, sheep and chickens.
So this evening, my heart goes out to that farm, and all farms, where people mix their life with their work and end up with a net gain (of products, of sensitivity, of placidity, of their selfhood recovered). The good work of the Heifer Project, a force for farmers around the world, should not be lost in all of this.
Good night.
Posted by Henry Shepherd at March 8, 2006 12:55 AM
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Comments
I was pretty bummed out when I read that. I hope that they can collect donations sufficient to build a new barn before next winter. I have read that the barn was NOT insured, so Overlook definitely needs any help they can get.
BTW Peter the Yak rules.
Posted by: Alex at March 9, 2006 11:02 AM
