The Places in Between

November 28, 2016

One of my favorite spots on our farm is not so much a destination as it is a place to pause along the way. Situated between the gates of the upper pasture and the hopper field, it’s the highest point on our land, a resting place where I can linger in the shade of a massive white oak and catch a cool breeze. There are many such places here, spots that collect and funnel the elements or provide an island of calm from the same. In this place, on a warm day, as the breeze blows up from the Shinn field through the hopper field, I’ll turn off the tractor, lean back in the seat, and take a rest.

To my south, the upper pasture softly rises and falls across ten acres. At its center is a large dew pond that even in this severe drought remains deep. At the southern end lie the handsome fields of our neighbor Heidi, and far in the distance, on a clear day, the Appalachian Mountain chain is visible to the southeast.

Closer to home, I can see the massive roofs of a handful of McMansions towering above the old pine plantations of Bowater. When the pine monoculture grounded on the shoals of a beetle infestation in the early 2000s, the paper and pulp giant sold off the degraded land to the over-extended. Mainly couples who engaged in a bit of monoculture of their own and built their dream 6,000-square-foot homes-for-two. When the bottom fell through in 2007, many of the homes never got finished. And today, from the vantage point of my tractor seat, the roofs, like mushrooms after the rain, poke up from the dying pine forest, indicating the presence of a larger organism at work.

This restful spot is not only a collector of cool breezes; it’s also an auditory funnel. Sounds that float to me on a hot day archive the life of our valley. Lowell starts his tractor to the south, the Strickland brothers yell to each other as they repair a fence to the east, and Heidi calls out instructions to her daughter in the horse ring, all as roosters crow from every direction, mowers hum in a modern imitation of honeybees, and my dogs yip a sound that tells me a rabbit is giving its mortal best to avoiding an untimely end.

When I’ve taken my rest and am ready to start back to work, it once again occurs to me to erect a bench here, where the fences converge between the fields. My own personal retreat, a place I can visit and while away an hour or two. But I never do, instead opting by inaction to preserve this place as a simple haven for a few stolen moments. Like trying to recreate the magic of a well-remembered conversation, I seem intuitively to know that formalizing this special spot as a designated “peaceful destination” would undo the pleasure I find in a surprise rest from work.


Reading this weekend: A Forest Journey: the role of wood in the development of civilization, by John Perlin

Feature image: Another favored view on the farm

Brian Miller

Brian Miller lives in rural east Tennessee with his partner, Cindy. Since 1999 they have owned and operated Winged Elm Farm: a 70-acre working farm of pastures, orchards and mixed hardwoods. They direct market pork, lamb, mutton and beef to customers in Knoxville and Chattanooga. A native of Louisiana, Brian’s guiding influence in life is to know that everything begins with a roux. Brian blogs at The South Roane Agrarian. He is the author of Kayaking with Lambs: notes from an East Tennessee farmer.

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