"Counting and dividing are closely related activities." I find myself recalling a long-ago little-girl morning spent perched atop a church pew, listening with indignation to a tale of divine retribution after David, crowned king at the time, took it upon himself to count the Israelites. These musings of yours shed a slightly different light on the multiple bloodied retellings of that old story. Thank you, Adam, for your stirring of the mind-waters.
Numeracy seems to have been dangerous magic for humans, but now passes largely unquestioned as the way it's always been. I find myself wrestling with my desire to count and track and my impulse to lean on numbers in describing the Farm all of the time.
I am moved by the care and love evident in your description of your killing of two of your flock. In my late teens, I worked for a short while in a slaughter house. It was a small, family owned business but still a business, run to make money as efficiently as possible. A killing machine. I saw what daily working in that machine did to the men who worked there. It hardened some thing in them. They were not unkind. In fact, they were welcoming and tolerant of my inadequacies as a young innocent stepping gingerly into the realities of life and death. I learned a lot from those men. But there was a hardness about them that I do not feel in your voice as you tell of your way of slaughter. So, I wonder how you are able to remain soft in the doing of death. I suspect that it has to do with number and money. The men worked in the slaughter house in order to earn money to pay the bills. I worked there to earn enough money to travel from the UK to the US. We were not killing the animals to eat them. We did not know their names. We did not know their ancestry or provenance. We just knew the number required to die before the day's work was done.
I've got the budget done--$3881 it turns out---and I'm working on the story-scaffold for it. It might have to come out in installments. The scope of it is swelling before my eyes. Probably it sits near the center of the book, but hadn't yet found my way there yet. Thanks for your nudge, Ryan. Best, Adam
This piece reminds of the North American indigenous peoples whom my mother wanted so desperately to belong to. And now I know why. Native peoples traded goods with each other, but they didn't own any land, unless you count "territories" as owning. Their lives were driven by relationships with the land, water, rocks, and all the creatures living amongst them. Not driven by the amassing of possessions.
And now I understand what you are talking about when you talk about "longings," for yes, I inherited my mother's desire. I so wish I could become a Native American!!! (Alas, an Ancestry analysis shows only the barest drop of Native genes. Sadness.)
I am reminded of the book "Ishmael," the story of the intelligent gorilla and his rendering of "the takers and the leavers," the stark difference between them mirrors the divide between a Market Economy and a Life of Relationships. (but maybe it doesn't have to be so?)
I am reminded of the fabulous book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond, the story about how white people, by accident of place, conquered the world..
I am one of those who does poorly in a market, competition-driven economy. That's probably why i had such intense longings in my 30's and 40's to move to Vermont and live on a farm. But i wasn't able to "succeed" at that either. Fortunately, in my own way, I've focused on a life and work built of relationships. Your essay compels me to explore further how I can or do reflect such an ethic. Thank you.
The care with which you live your life is evident in all of your sharings. Thank you Adam for always touching my heart in some deep way and even though I live on the other side of the country (WAY Northern California, about 15 miles South of Oregon and 20 miles East of the Pacific as the crow flies) and cannot be fed by the labors of your Farm love, you are feeding my soul each time I read your writings. May your overflowing heart continue to nurture so many!!
"Counting and dividing are closely related activities." I find myself recalling a long-ago little-girl morning spent perched atop a church pew, listening with indignation to a tale of divine retribution after David, crowned king at the time, took it upon himself to count the Israelites. These musings of yours shed a slightly different light on the multiple bloodied retellings of that old story. Thank you, Adam, for your stirring of the mind-waters.
Numeracy seems to have been dangerous magic for humans, but now passes largely unquestioned as the way it's always been. I find myself wrestling with my desire to count and track and my impulse to lean on numbers in describing the Farm all of the time.
Such good food for thought. (And please..share your meatloaf recipe!)
Thanks for your note, Jenifer. I'll send you an email with a meatloaf recipe. With thanks, Adam
Please also share with me!
I am moved by the care and love evident in your description of your killing of two of your flock. In my late teens, I worked for a short while in a slaughter house. It was a small, family owned business but still a business, run to make money as efficiently as possible. A killing machine. I saw what daily working in that machine did to the men who worked there. It hardened some thing in them. They were not unkind. In fact, they were welcoming and tolerant of my inadequacies as a young innocent stepping gingerly into the realities of life and death. I learned a lot from those men. But there was a hardness about them that I do not feel in your voice as you tell of your way of slaughter. So, I wonder how you are able to remain soft in the doing of death. I suspect that it has to do with number and money. The men worked in the slaughter house in order to earn money to pay the bills. I worked there to earn enough money to travel from the UK to the US. We were not killing the animals to eat them. We did not know their names. We did not know their ancestry or provenance. We just knew the number required to die before the day's work was done.
I do look forward to your dreadfully boring accounting on how one stays alive on less than four thousand dollars 🤓
Greetings Ryan,
I've got the budget done--$3881 it turns out---and I'm working on the story-scaffold for it. It might have to come out in installments. The scope of it is swelling before my eyes. Probably it sits near the center of the book, but hadn't yet found my way there yet. Thanks for your nudge, Ryan. Best, Adam
This piece reminds of the North American indigenous peoples whom my mother wanted so desperately to belong to. And now I know why. Native peoples traded goods with each other, but they didn't own any land, unless you count "territories" as owning. Their lives were driven by relationships with the land, water, rocks, and all the creatures living amongst them. Not driven by the amassing of possessions.
And now I understand what you are talking about when you talk about "longings," for yes, I inherited my mother's desire. I so wish I could become a Native American!!! (Alas, an Ancestry analysis shows only the barest drop of Native genes. Sadness.)
I am reminded of the book "Ishmael," the story of the intelligent gorilla and his rendering of "the takers and the leavers," the stark difference between them mirrors the divide between a Market Economy and a Life of Relationships. (but maybe it doesn't have to be so?)
I am reminded of the fabulous book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond, the story about how white people, by accident of place, conquered the world..
I am one of those who does poorly in a market, competition-driven economy. That's probably why i had such intense longings in my 30's and 40's to move to Vermont and live on a farm. But i wasn't able to "succeed" at that either. Fortunately, in my own way, I've focused on a life and work built of relationships. Your essay compels me to explore further how I can or do reflect such an ethic. Thank you.
The care with which you live your life is evident in all of your sharings. Thank you Adam for always touching my heart in some deep way and even though I live on the other side of the country (WAY Northern California, about 15 miles South of Oregon and 20 miles East of the Pacific as the crow flies) and cannot be fed by the labors of your Farm love, you are feeding my soul each time I read your writings. May your overflowing heart continue to nurture so many!!