Tonight I was walking out of the Hillside Farms Dairy Store
where I have been buying my milk. It was
dark and chilly and there was a distinct smell of cow in the air. And while that smell is not one that I would
bottle up and sell at the perfume counter of Macys, it was still strangely
soothing.
The smell reminded me that the bottle of milk I was holding
in my hand had a tangible connection to the land I was walking on. The air I was breathing in was the same air
that the cows’ breath was misting in as they walked into their barn across the
street. The water I saw in the stream
next to the road was the same water that those cows drank. Everything around me, from the dirt and grass
beneath my feet to the sun that shone so brightly that day, was part of the
milk in the bottle in my hand.
Years ago, when I was younger than my own children are now,
that connection with nature was something that I rarely thought about. Right in our backyard, my Mother had a
vegetable and root garden. I still
remember her warm potato salad, made with potatoes and onions from her garden
and covered in chives she had cut that day from her flower garden. I remember going to an orchard in Noxen and
picking our own apples fresh from the trees.
I remember driving by Harter’s Dairy and seeing the cows that made the
milk the milkman delivered to our house.
I remember stopping on a fall afternoon and buying gallons of apple
cider that Mr. Spencer and his family had pressed that day from apples they had
picked from the trees behind their barn.
On that same road, we used to pass by a house where you could see the
bee hives they kept and where you could buy quarts of “… the freshest honey
outside of a hive.”
But mostly I remember my Mom, Dad, Brother and I filling
buckets with wild blueberries at Rickett’s Glen State Park. Then we would stop in Steele’s Restaurant
after a day of hiking, swimming and blueberry picking to have some fresh cooked
food and Blueberry Pie made with blueberries picked by Mr. and Mrs. Steele and
baked that day. Nothing to this day has
ever compared to the taste of Mrs. Steele’s homemade blueberry pie, served warm
with vanilla ice cream.
I wonder how many of today’s generation have ever felt that
connection. I wonder where they think
food comes from. Do they realize that
there is more to food than supermarket shelves and boxes of prepared
meals? How many of them have ever seen a
cow, up close and in person? How many of
them know what an apple fresh from the tree tastes like, or have ever felt a
freshly picked strawberry squirt juice all over their tongue as they take a
bite? Can they even know what they are
missing?
In this world filled with email, virtual pets, on-line
dating, e-books and digitally altered photography it is a good thing once in a
while to walk on a farm and rest in the shade of an old tree while eating an
ice cream cone that the cows in the field below you made the milk for yesterday
morning. Touching the grass that the
cows ate and seeing the milk the farmer collected and then turned into the ice
cream that cools your tongue on a warm day will put you in touch with
yourself. You will discover things about
yourself. You will realize that you are
indeed a part of this whole universe, this chain of being. Whoever you conceive God to be, it is easier
to get in touch with the divine when there are fewer man-made things between
you and the universe. Whether we evolved
in this world to be a part of it or if we were designed and made to fit into
it, it is still better to realize that we are a part of this world. We are made from the bones of this earth and
it is a good thing to touch them once in a while and ground ourselves.
So, if you can, get out today and find that part of you that
lives on a quiet farm or in an autumn-tinted forest. Bask in the sunshine, let the water of a
stream tickle your fingers and deeply breathe in the air around you. Take your children there and let them learn
about that part of themselves. And teach
them that it is a good thing, once in a while, to stop and smell the cows.
For more information about the wonderful volunteers and
sublimely beautiful dairy and farm at The Lands at Hillside Farms, see their webpage here or check
them out on their Facebook page.
