Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

There is a periodic theme that gets posted on homestead lists and the recent 
posts about New Year's resolutions put me in mind of it.  There will be a 
catalog of all the things that are in need of doing on the homestead starkly 
juxtaposed beside how little time and resources there are to do it.

I have done this too, and indeed worn it like a virtue.  But the question 
posed itself some time back whether this was what the homestead life was all 
about.  (What if the Hokey-Pokey IS what it's all about!)  Is the destiny 
laid on 
all us homesteaders that we spend our days chasing about madly with 100 
things 
to do but only time and resources to do 20 of them at best, always behind, 
always exhausted, our plans and aspirations always partly realized?

It reminds me of a song by blues composer and performer that I know, himself 
a homesteader and the very aspect of homesteading I am addressing inspired a 
song whose refrain runs:

"You can run like the Devil
 But you never get it all done
 You can run like the Devil
 But you still can't catch the setting sun."

With all the 'handle time' on a ludite's homestead, the time you spend with a 
handle in your hand doing a repetitive task and lull into a meditative state, 
I began to wonder if perhaps we've got the whole thing backwards.  There's 
the old joke where the child has a lemonade stand with a sign 'All You Can 
Drink 
for 10 Cents".  The passerby lays down a dime and takes a glass of lemonade 
and then says:
"I'll have another."
"That will be ten cents."
"I already gave you ten cents."
"That was for the first glass."
"But the sign says 'all you can drink for 10 cents.'"
"That's right.  That's all you can drink for ten cents."

Our mortal lives contain the sublime blessedness of finiteness.  There is 
only so much we are going to be able to do.  As I was cutting hay and 
regarding 
the hillside across the road where the blackberries were blossoming and where 
I'd be picking them for our winter supply of blackberry jam, I noted that we 
have some 50 jelly jars that I hope to fill with blackberry jam and when they 
are full, no matter how many more berries are still there, I will gladly pass 
on 
them.  What if I did the opposite.  What if I looked at how many berries are 
there and then went about in a mad rush, running like the Devil, trying to 
fit 
all the berries into jars in a hopless fit of frustration.

Yet isn't that what we do most of the time?  

So I began to view projects and aspirations around the farm with a different 
eye.  What can I do a good job of and have a good time doing it?  How much do 
I really need and how much do I really need to get done?  The answer 
surprised 
me:+  Not so much.

I found that life, and especially farmstead life, isn't about a mad 
breathless dash in a hopeless bid to catch the setting sun.  There's no 
virtue in that. 
 Our days are full of time and our lives full of days plenty to live well on 
a farmstead without running like the Devil.

---------------------

Floyd's song:

"It was late last night when Old Nick came in
 He said,  'Where have you been?'
 I said, 'I been down to that River of Life
 And they say I might rise again.'
He said, 'No, your gonna rest with me
 Like you daddy and your gandpa done
I take 'em all, man, short or tall
 Like the corn in the autumn sun

And you can run like the Devil
 But you still can't get it all done
You can run like the Devil
 But you still can't catch the setting sun.'

You're a live wire under tension
 Stretched to extremes
Brought so far beyond convention
 You'd likely split the seams
But there's a payment to make, a powder to take
You got to dress just right and be cool
When the race is run and it's all said and done
They're still gonna bury you.

You can run like the Devil
But you can't get it all
You can run like the Devil
But you still gotta heed the Master's call

Yeah, darkness gonna come, night is gonna fall."