The Deliberate Agrarian Blogazine December 2012

Dateline: 31 December 2012

A view of woods & stream on the new land we bought in 2012

Well there goes another year. It was a memorable year because my first grandchild was born, and the fulfillment of my long-held vision for land (without going into debt) became a reality. My Planet Whizbang home business has also grown and, in less than a month, I will finally leave my wage-slave job to work at the home business full time. That will be something pretty special for me.

I love this machine!

And 2012 was the year I bought myself a snowblower. I've never owned or even used a snowblower before, and I never thought I'd buy one, but my aging back  and a second driveway to clear (on the new property) has brought me to this point. 

I bought the snowblower in early November, back when the weather was nice and everyone was wondering if we might have another winter like last year, in which the snow barely made a showing.

But that question has been answered. It has snowed a LOT here and I actually enjoy "shoveling" with a 30" wide snowblower.

The only problem I faced was getting it from my home to the new place down the road where we have a doublewide trailer packed with Planet Whizbang inventory. But I solved the problem with that sled you see in the picture above. It doesn't look like much but it gets "Mr. Ahriens" down and back very nicely.

My People

Kate Towle, My Great Grandmother

I was looking through some old pictures this past month and came across the one above showing my great grandmother Kate Towle, of Fort Fairfield, Maine. The picture was taken in 1964 by my grandmother Kimball (Kate’s daughter). My grandmother wrote on the back: “This is rug Mother made for me.”

My grandmother Philbrick (on the other side of the family) was also from Fort Fairfield, and she crafted beautiful braided rugs too. The rugs were made from woolen material that was salvaged from old clothing. I recall my grandmother Philbrick braiding fabric that had been cut to an even width and sewn into long rolls.

I don’t think I have ever known anyone besides my grandmothers to make braided rugs. Marlene and I have often thought we would like to try it. Have any of you reading this made a braided rug?

The Hiram Towle, Sr. Family of Fort Fairfield, Maine (1932): Front row- Kathryn, Hiram, Jr., Kate, Hiram Sr., Clara, John. Middle row- Donald, Helen, Mary, Ruth, Everett. Back row- Arthur, Charles

The picture above (click to enlarge) shows Kate (32 years younger than in the previous picture) seated next to her husband, Hiram Towle.  Hiram and Kate were married in 1907 and they had 11 children. My grandmother (Mary) was the oldest of the bunch. Hiram was a potato farmer and their farm was on the Hoyt Road. Everyone in that picture is now deceased, except my great aunt Clara.

Looking into the young faces of my kinfolk, in a picture taken 80 years ago, is kind of odd. I remember many of those people. It leaves me with a poignant and melancholy feeling. Life is so very short.
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The First Time 

The N.Y. Times 

Wrote About Me 

This picture from  the Grassroots Project in Vermont, 1976-77, was probably taken by Ruth Biro. I wrote on the back: "Gordon (from the Times), Dawn, Tilda, & Beth."

Back in the fall of 1976 I was enrolled in "The Grassroots Project" at the Sterling School (now Sterling College) in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. It was a life-changing year for me in many ways. One of the funny things that happened that year was a reporter from the NY Times came to the school for a week to gather information for an article. That wasn’t so funny, but what he wrote—about me—was kind of funny, primarily because it was completely untrue.

Here is what the article said:

Herrick C. Kimball, a recent product of Choate, is equally enthusiastic. He likes the way the faculty shifts quickly from theory into practice. “I learned more about botany in one day here,” he says, “than in a whole year at Choate.”

I am not a product of Choate, and I never said what I was quoted as saying in the article. But my classmate, Harry Miller, was a product of Choate and he said those words. The mixup apparently came because Harry’s real name was Andy. And the reporter was apparently given a list of the names of the students in the program. When he went looking for “Harry” in the names, he assumed that Harry was Herrick. But Harry was actually Andy (I’ve never been called Harry).

Harry (or Andy) was the one who told me about the article when it came out, and he was a little miffed that I got quoted in the NY Times instead of him. 

All of this was in my mind when I recently came across the old picture above. I wondered if I could find the original Times article. All I knew was the reporter’s first name. After about ten minutes of searching I found the web site of Gordon Sander, and there was the article: The Subject is the Land and the Sky and Yourself.

The internet is truly amazing!

P.S. How I came by that picture is kind of interesting. I had no camera back then. But a friend who did showed me the school’s darkroom one day. There was exposed film hanging all over the place. The film contained pictures that he and some other students had taken. My friend showed me how to use the film and the equipment in the room to develop my own pictures using photographic paper. I ended up buying a package of the paper and spent an afternoon developing pictures from the film. That was the first and last time I ever did that. 

Now we have digital cameras, darkrooms are pretty much a thing of the past, and I’ve become an old-timer.

A Man Called Peter
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I watched the 1955 movie, A Man Called Peter, a few days ago. It is about the life of the Presbyterian minister, Peter Marshall. It is based on the book of the same title written by Peter Marshall’s wife, Catherine. Somewhere packed away I have a copy of the book, signed by Catherine, that I picked up from a past bookhunting expedition. I think I’ll have to read it because I enjoyed the movie. It was something of a blockbuster back in ’55 (three years before I was born). I know my mother was a big admirer of Marshall, probably from seeing the movie. If you have an opportunity to see A Man Called Peter, I recommend it. One thing for sure—they don’t make movies like that anymore.
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Peter Marshall 

On Womanhood

Peter Marshall died of a heart attack in January of 1949 . He was only 46 years old. In November of 1949 Catherine published a book of her deceased husband’s sermons. Mr. Jones Meet The Master was an instant best seller. 

There is a chapter in the book titled “Keepers of the Springs” which I found particularly interesting. It is about Christianity, and womanhood, and the importance of godly mothers. Here are some excerpts from that chapter.

“[God] ushered woman into a new place in human relations. He accorded her a new dignity and crowned her with a new glory, so that wherever the Christian evangel has gone for nineteen centuries, the daughters of Mary have been respected, revered, remembered and loved, for men have recognized that womanhood is a sacred and noble thing, that women are finer clay.... are in touch with the angels of God and have the noblest function that life affords.”

“It remained for the twentieth century, in the name of progress, in the name of tolerance, in the name of broadmindedness, in the name of freedom, to pull her down from her throne and try to make her like a man. She wanted equality. For nineteen hundred years she had not been equal—she had been superior. But now, they said, she wanted equality, and in order to obtain it, she had to step down.”

“No nation has ever made any progress in a downward direction. No people ever became great by lowering their standards. No people ever became good by adopting a looser morality. It is not progress when the moral tone is lower than it was. It is not progress when purity is not as sweet. It is not progress when womanhood has lost its fragrance. Whatever else it is, it is not progress!”

“The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge—that of being godly women. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear of every other kind of women—beautiful woman, smart women, sophisticated women, career woman, talented woman, divorced women, but so seldom do we hear of a godly woman—or a godly man, either, for that matter.”

“The world has enough women who know how to be smart, It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.”

Social Commentary

if you happened to miss my mid-month commentary about the Sandy Hook shootings, you can Read it Here. 

Another commentary on that sad event that I recommend is, Where Does The Blame Lie?. That essay, written by my friend Ron Woodburn, contains the congressional testimony of Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Joy Scott, who was killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Mr. Scott does NOT lay the blame for his daughter’s death on guns or the NRA.

Even if you don’t take the time to read Ron’s essay, you should still click the link above to look at the picture he has posted with the essay. The unusual picture is a profound essay and commentary in itself.

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Standing Stone Honey

Ronald Woodburn, of Standing Stone Honey products, Locke, New York

Ron Woodburn (mentioned above) is a young man of exemplary Christian character. I’ve been blessed to know him, and his whole family. Ron has also been a beekeeper for several years. He works a full time job in the city and in his spare time he is building a home-based business around the honey that his bees make for him. In other words, he’s an agrarian entrepreneur. That’s something I have a lot of respect for, especially in younger folks (which, from my perspective, is anyone under thirty).

With all of that in mind, please take a moment and stop by Ron Woodburn’s web site, Standing Stone Honey Products. Check out what he has to offer. Ron's business and his products reflect his personal integrity. You can buy from him with complete confidence. ‘Nuff said.

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That's it for this month. 

Here's wishing you all a blessed year in 2013!