Nothing Futile About That

I moved the cows this morning just as the sun was rising, the eastern sky a cloud-striated pink, the breeze eerie-warm against my bare arms. Mid-October and not even cool enough for goosebumps. Halfway down the field, I walked through a feeble shower, brief enough that I glanced up to see if perhaps I’d had the misfortune to pass under a flock of urinating birds, but no.

I’m moving the cows only every few days now. A big part of rotational grazing is getting the animals off a particular piece of ground before the sward begins it cyclical regrowth and the cows have a chance to nip it before it can become reestablished. But in mid-October, there’s no regrowth and thus the impetus for frequent moves is somewhat reduced. I love moving the cows, but having done so twice a day for the past five months, and having multitudinous other ways in which to pass the 20 or so daily minutes those moves require, I don’t mind the break. Soon enough they’ll be off pasture in full, though this year it looks like we’ll get two or more week of grazing than is typical for us. It’s nice to see the efforts we’ve put into improving the pasture – rotations, minerals, fertility, raw milk, and so on – rewarded.

Yesterday Nate began the long drive to Minnesota, where he plans to settle permanently. Or as permanently as is possible for Nate, who, as regular readers will know, lives a somewhat nomadic existence, setting up what most would consider primitive camps at the junctures of seasonal harvests. Wild rice camp. White fish camp. Trapping camp. Sugaring camp. And so on.

He’s hardly gone and already his absence is keenly felt. It would be difficult to overstate the impact Nate has had on our lives in just a couple of years. Indeed I dare say Fin and Rye trust and love him as unquestioningly as they do their devoted parents (and in some regards, perhaps even more so), and part of our sorrow over his departure has to do with the fact that there simply aren’t many people like Nate in this world. There aren’t many people who can model for our sons such undiluted reverence for and connection to the natural world. When Nate traps a beaver, its fur becomes his clothing, its meat becomes his food, and its tail becomes a knife sheath. He does not trap to earn a living; he traps to live, and therein lies a distinction that is rarely acknowledged in modern times. This distinction could be applied to almost all his wilderness pursuits. It is the same distinction we try to apply – in varying degrees of success – to our homestead ecosystem.

So yeah, we’re sad for the boys’ loss, but we’re also sad because Nate is one of those people with whom we felt immediate connection, kinship, and mutual respect. I do not wish to live like Nate (Penny, on the other had, just might), and I know he does not wish to live like me, but I believe we recognize in each other a desire to entwine our lives with the land and that is no longer a common thing.

It’s not so much that I’m inspired by others who share this desire; in fact, I think it’s more powerful than that: I’m comforted. I need that sometimes. Hell, maybe all the time, because the truth is, there aren’t many people left who share this desire and for those of us that do, this world can sometimes feel a lonely place.

I remember after one of my talks recently, someone came up and asked if it bothered me to know I was merely preaching to the choir. “All the people who really need to hear this stuff aren’t here and they probably never will be,” he said. “It’s practically futile.” He was right, of course.

And he was wrong. Because we all deserve that sense of comfort and companionship. We all deserve to feel kinship and mutual respect and the support that evolves from it. Far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing futile about that.