So, I’m dredging through Treehugger, a trendy website about Green news, and I see this TED video and it mentions Polyface Farms in the caption. The presenter in the video spends a while talking about Salatin’s biosystem, and how he uses a group of species to work together to make a huge amount of food off of 100 acres. The presentation is about how plants do things to make us grow them, to make bees pollinate them, etc. We all do things to promote one species over another in an effort to promote our own species, and so the selection pressures favor certain behaviors. Rather than thinking that it’s people-versus-nature, we should notice–and build on–the fact that people and plants work together. That is how Joel works with the grass, cattle and other critters on Polyface Farm.
It makes me want to go back to raising animals. Maybe I’m forgetting all those mornings where I went out and walked in the chilly, wet, grass, dragging feed around. Maybe what I really want is have a “hobby farm”, and fund it with my real job. Or maybe I should follow in my family’s footsteps and get a small amount of land, raise as much as I can on it, then quit the industry and go farming full time. But, then I think of the bigger picture—am I getting stuck on a tiny aspect: growing things, and really I should be thinking about how I can help others, serve God, and make life better in general? Growing food would cause a symbiotic relationship with my customers who would get better value food than elsewhere (business sense says they would). And if I could figure out how to help others do the same thing, that would be a benefit to others. And if, while so helping others—-whether here, or somewhere that it rains more, or in Africa where there is just packed dirt—if I also help them discover God’s love for them, then my purpose in life would be complete.
But, before going and doing something drastic, like quitting my job and buying a farm and some cows..,,in India,,,maybe I should do what I can in my current situation—because just moving to Timbuktu won’t magically turn me into a great dirt-farming missionary. So, what is the next step? Do I get my own house in town so I have at least a little area to capture solar energy? Do I start doing more active evangelism? (more than just hoping they ask why I don’t strangle annoying people). Do I go haggle with the City to let me build a cheap house so that I can help everyone who needs one have an affordable place to live? Or do I just keep doing what I have to do, wash my dishes and laundry, clean up my house, and wait for Monday to go back to work? I could change the foodscape in my town, help dozens of people afford their own house, help a town in Senegal have clean water, and help transmit the Gospel by radio into closed countries.
But, I don’t really have time. Right now. What with work and all. And, I’ve got some webcomics to check back on before I go watch a movie.
