Shift in Wind

 

The wind has been howling for days now. Rain beats down with intention. In bed, I hear the roof draining water into the gutters and to one or the other side of the house. We'll soon have a better system for collecting that water and distributing it to the field as it is needed. But for now, I think about the fields as they are. Stubby stalks, left from last year's corn harvest, stand in rows like military troops. Cobs and chunks of the rest of the stalks lie on the soil, ready to moulder. It reminds me of a woman wearing nothing but a slip in Wisconsin's winter winds. It's inadequate, too simple, and utterly inappropriate for the conditions. At very first glance, there's a lovely allure, but one must lament the paucity of protection. The orderly rows of corn have always been attractive to me. And, aesthetically, they still are. However, with a shift in thought come more potential and profound insight into the beauty of a thing. For 27 (more for everyone else in the family) years, I've been wandering around our 100 acres, watching the wetland area ebb and swell, and watching the corn-and-soy-farmer's machinery creep closer to the creek.

A few years ago, I walked with a girl to the back of the farm, hoping to charm her with a saunter through the deer paths in the Southwesternmost 17 acres of native grasses and wildflowers. We crossed over the walkable part of the wetland and came to what looked like a wasteland. The grasses were turned under and boulders of soil lay chunked across the entire acreage. We couldn't even walk through it. The small features of the land that I had known for years were gone. The deer that used to peek up at me and spring away had nowhere to bed. There were no songbirds fluttering into the grasses and no hosts of sparrows or flights of swallows darting up and swarming back into the quiet savanna's grass. To say the least, it was disheartening to see this pristine land get torn up to produce a few more rows of corn.

That was several years ago and the back 17 acres now look like the rest of the corn-and-soy acreage- stubby military stalks in unnatural uniform.

We're all back on the farm now after moving back from our temporary homes out of state. We live in "Grampa's house," across the 2.5 acre field from the farmhouse. When my brothers and I were young, Grampa and Gramma lived in this house. We would run across the field to visit every couple of days, but without question, we'd be there every Sunday of the Packers' season, memorizing stats and drinking malts at half time while Grampa talked about the yield of corn per acre for the year. We listened but didn't always know what it all meant. In a way, he planted in us the seeds of interest. While we go about farming in a disparate manner and with alternative motivation, I know he'd be proud to see the land in healthy production, the way the 12 northern acres will be this summer. When I step out into the yard and face this easterly wind, I still feel the spirits of my grandparents- Gramma working in her garden or making some delicious dessert and Grampa laughing about some witty joke he told several minutes ago.

The house is quaint and a pleasure to live in, but the quarters tend to constrict if we don't get out to explore our land. But now we do it with more in mind than charming girls. Yes, we get out there for the sake of the walk and to run the dogs, but we travel with an observant eye. We feel the winds and the stillness, we feel the soils and take note of color change. We watch where the water flows and which pockets take longer to thaw in the mornings. We owe it to our land and to ourselves. The land wants to be back in its most natural state, when its life was effortless and untilled, when grasses waved where the stubs now stand, and fruiting trees had a chance of developing a vastly diverse biome. The topsoil wants to regenerate into a deeply rich structure, able to sustain an entire ecological system. It's our responsibility to listen to the land and fulfill our role in the cycle. This land has a way of moving us into action, as if it were a plea for freedom, a demand for restoration.

And now, I open my eyes and watch the rain slide down my windows leaving a trail like snails on a fallen branch. I think again about the grasses I used to love to brush my hands through and I feel an urgency to restore that sanctuary. The corn stubs will be there tomorrow and the next day, but so will we, walking the field, listening to the rolling terrain, preparing to give ourselves up to the demands of this higher presence, the land.