Home in the Wild

 We know that in many ways, patterns in later adult life are shaped by the environment we had as children. Even though we might decide to rebel against our upbringing when we grow up, we may notice many years later that some fundamental things stay with us. What I've been realizing about my own early years is that they shaped me into being most at home in the outdoors. I grew up on a big Iowa farm, and all my free time was spent exploring and playing in the many landscapes a farm provides. When I was not in school, I was with my cousin John, who lived just across a couple fields from our big farmhouse. We climbed trees, rafted down the Wapsinonac Creek, rode on the hay wagon as the crop was coming into the barn. We made hideouts in the "haymow", skated on the pond, sledded down the hills. I quietly crept into the chicken house to gather eggs and watched little pigs being born in the pig barn. In the mornings, I heard my dad getting up early, whistling, buckets clanking as he walked down to do that morning's milking. I used to peer down from a soft seat in the haymow, watching a noisy row of beef cattle having their meal at a big trough, until one day I fell through a crack in the straw bales and ended up in the trough, right in front of the cows' heads! 

We kids played hide and seek around the house, caught lightning bugs in a jar, listened to coyotes howling at night, and to chattering raccoons getting into the sweet corn patch. From my bedroom upstairs the first sound I heard was the cooing of the mourning dove outside my window. (I thought until much later that their name was "morning" dove, not mourning dove! Their calls were so beautiful that I couldn't equate them with being sad.)

John and I went fishing down the hill on the banks of our creek and brought in "chubs" for our less-than-enthusiastic mothers. We rode our bikes down the dirt road to the dump and explored all the exciting things that people threw away. John was a bit older than I was, so he was my leader. But we both liked adventure so we were a good match. The farmhouse I grew up in was huge and beautiful, a Sears Roebuck home that came in pieces to the train stop a mile away. It was built in the late 1800's and was the envy of folks who had less elegant homes. I think I took the house for granted, though I enjoyed the spaciousness. Mostly my focus was outside those walls. It is the outdoor world that has drawn me into it, has felt more like home than anything manufactured. Thus, I've never developed much of an interest in "things", belongings, man-made stuff. To this day, I fail to notice the decor and furnishings of other people's home spaces, a fault that frequently embarrasses me. But everything in nature completely draws my attention, even the tiniest details of a leaf or cloud. 

The older I get, the more I am in awe of trees, their resilience, their beauty, their humble presence everywhere. And I realize that it all started early in my childhood with the beautiful, widely branching willow that grew at the edge of our yard. It was definitely my first plant friend. I loved to sit nestled in its upper branches and look out over the farm. Then, down at the "crick", John and I discovered a huge tree right at the water's edge. First we had fun climbing it, and then decided to build a tree house in its upper branches. I'm sure he did most of the building, with me handing him boards and nails, but we got it done and often climbed up the trunk to enjoy the airy room above the world. We attached a bag swing to a branch that overhung the creek, and it was exciting and breath-taking to fly so high over the rushing water and then back to the high bank.

When I got to high school age, a time when kids usually gave up playing and turned to more serious things, I was lucky enough to be sent to Scattergood, a Quaker boarding school nearby. Though I didn't want to go at first, didn't want to leave my friends in the public school, once I got there I found that I loved the community, the people from all over the world, and especially the focus on the outdoors. Scattergood had a pig farm and a dairy farm, and all the students were involved in farm projects. We raised chickens as freshmen and cared for our own sow and piglets as sophomores. Scattergood's work program was an inspiration: all students and staff members together took care of the physical needs of the community, dish washing, cleaning, and taking care of the farms. My favorite assignment was "chore crew" which focused on the dairy farm. Early each morning (between 5 and 5:30) the 5 chore crew members walked across the fields to the dairy farm, fed and milked the cows, supervised by the farm manager, and then rode back to school in the back of the pickup truck with that day's milk cans, just in time for breakfast. We would walk into the dining room where all the other students were eating, proud and upbeat from the morning air and the important job we'd just done.

Thus, my life from childhood to college age was framed by the living world, by the trees and fields, sky and clouds, thunderstorms and warm breezes. The natural world was a safe place, home to me. Once I was out of college and had become a wife and mother, I felt the urge to grow things myself, to plant gardens and to take some plants inside to my window sills. Now, many many years later, my kinship with plants has grown. I've grown them for food, cultivated them for medicine, explored them in the wild, and brought some into my home as valued companions. I am continually inspired by the plant forms in our world and their own form of intelligence. What an honor it is to be nestled in the web of life with them as my neighbors.