I went home this weekend.
I’ve been thinking about the concept of “home” quite a bit
recently, with regard to both my personal and professional self. As it usually does, my thinking turned into
searching which led to reading, which finally led to discovery. I came across an online forum driven by the
lead question “What do you consider ‘home’?”
A simple response in the middle of many rambling oratories became the
end of my search:
Home is the place you would go if given the choice to live
anywhere.
Aldo Leopold had his Shack in Wisconsin, Superman his
Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, I’ve got my parents’ farm in the northern
tier of Minnesota – the place I would choose out of all to spend every day that
I could. I reference Mr. Leopold as my
muse in the development of my land ethic, though I would fool no one into
believing my understanding of nature resembles his. Nor do I resemble Superman (“Blunderdud” is a
more fitting moniker most days), but I often refer to my parents’ place as my
Fortress of Solitude…the one place in the world I can escape the sights,
sounds, and presence of the world.
The Farm is a sprawling 140-acre parcel of land that sits at
the end of a dead end road and is surrounded by several thousand acres of
undeveloped wilderness that is open to public use but easily accessible by only
us. Simply put, it’s perfect. My parents’ land is mostly open, the
surrounding land completely wooded. The
fields are a mix of flatlands and rolling hills, and a stream runs through the
middle of the property. Over the last 15
years my dad and I have planted roughly 25,000 tree seedlings, which are now big enough
to provide cover for a variety of critters and birds.
The majority of my limited time on the Farm is spent
harvesting something, developing habitat, or working on parent-driven
projects. This weekend was divided
between searching for morel mushrooms on Saturday and deer farming on Sunday. Exhaustion and sunburn are signs of a
productive weekend.
The mushroom hunt took my dad and I from the Dinner Pail
Road straight east to Vance’s Swamp by way of the North Walking Ridge. A few ‘shrooms were found near the Crossroads
deer stand and a couple more by the Hangman’s Tree, but pickin’s were slim
compared to other years. After a couple
of hours we headed west towards Spring Crick (pronounced “crick”, a northern
term for a small stream) where again we found very few mushrooms in our first
hours of searching. When I finally got
to my go-to patch above the Slaughterhouse Ravine the sun was dipping towards the
treetops, but the ‘shrooms were standing tall.
As darkness fell I stumbled out of the woods with several pounds of
morels and five hours of walking behind me.
Dad had headed for home much earlier and was stunned to see me arrive
with my “catch”.
Sunday morning I headed to the Bald Knob, my second favorite
hunting area on The Farm, to start cleaning up our trails that were littered
with debris from some late summer logging last year. Is it odd that I never bother to rake my yard
to remove leaves or sticks, but I spend hours raking woods trails? Don’t answer, I already know. While I raked the woods my dad disked our deer
food plot on the Sand Flat. A healthy
food plot combined with the fresh cutting on the Knob…I’m almost shuddering as
I think about how thick the deer will be in that area this fall. Like shooting fish in a bucket.
As I worked today I thought of how I might write this blog
entry; what I’ve written was in the plan but now that I see it on a screen I
notice all the names. Trust me, you’ve
read but a glimpse of the named spots on The Farm. Most people want to find a place where
everybody knows their name; I like going where there isn’t anybody and every
place has a name. I’ve returned from The
Farm to write this in my house that isn’t home, in the city that I’ll never be
from, in a part of the world I’ve never loved…and that’s ok, because The Farm
will always be waiting to welcome me back home.
No comments:
Post a Comment