“Why is it some of the older men we know seem grumpy and some just happy to be alive?” I ask a friend in the shade of the kitchen.
It’s painfully hot outside and the air damp.
His skin is speckled with hay stuck to his face and bare arms, and his hair resembles a bird’s nest. His shirt is plastered to his chest as if he swam with it on.
The loft in the barn is now full and ready for the coming winter.
He takes a minute to think and swallow a quart jar of water.
“I think it’s just what they did for a living. Some people had it easy, some hard.”

“And God be praised we had a good increase… Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” – Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation

A stop sign is raised after a child is lowered into a grave. A tree is saved after a forest is used. A fisherman stops once the fish are no more.
It seems a society without foresight is one without future.

We rented, but we cared.
It seems against our nature not to care. Caring for ones shelter is surely innate. But it wasn’t ours, and this became more and more obvious as the years passed.
We planted a peach tree the first year on Second Street. The next spring we raised chicks to chickens and turned our lawn into food.
“You need to cut down that tree when you leave,” my landlord said as I was moving out. “I don’t want to have to take care of it, and it’s too hard to mow around.”
Today I bought someone else’s eggs for $3.50 and ate a peach from the freezer.

The land is vast, but taxes surely make it expensive. What is the answer?
There are thousands of cows placed on a small plot of land. Food is dumped into troughs, and manure is scooped away. It’s extremely efficient.
The smell is somewhat nostalgic if you have grown up on a farm, but this is not your grandfather’s family farm. These CAFO’s are jarring in their depiction of what is truly for dinner.
Is efficiency what we desire in our animal related agriculture? This is the kind of question we must ask if we are truly to be a sustainable nation.