with your one wild and precious life?"- Mary Oliver
After visiting Atlanta for almost a week, we drove southeast to the small town of Milledgeville, GA (home of Flannery O’Connor!) and have been staying on a beautiful homestead with a wonderful host. Debbie and her one-time WWOOFer/now neighbor Eyal have made us so welcome on their beautiful slice of heaven, we are yet again finding it difficult to leave. Salamander Springs is the essence of simple living. There is no running water in the traditional sense, but throughout the property are three different springs from which to collect drinking water and solar showers for washing. Rainwater is collected for dishes and there’s a solar-pump to bring it to the outdoor communal kitchen. You pee anywhere (and poo!) but if you want there is a latrine to use for the latter. There’s a huge garden that provides delicious fresh food, and Debbie ensures that the kitchen is always stocked as her number one worry and concern is providing food for all of the people who pass through to lend a hand.
The warmth and care that exuberates from both Debbie, Eyal and Daniel (another WWOOFer who has a more permanent place at the farm) and the passion that they have for every tree, plant, bug, creature on their land (except the goddamn fireants!) is absolutely contagious. Cooking over the fire every night and sharing meals with the friends gathered is a beautiful experience in itself.
And it calls into question so much of how I live my life, how I will choose to live my life after this trip is through. Debbie follows a lot of permaculture practices, but as with all methods, it’s necessary to cull what you believe are the best practices and makes most sense for you. One thing I appreciate so much about farming and gardening is that, well, it just makes sense. There’s a lot to learn, of course – which plants can survive Georgia heat, what plants will put nutrients back into the ground, what plants are perennials. But once you begin to learn a little, the floodgates open and you can file it all away because it makes sense and can be managed.
While staying at places like Salamander Springs, you can begin to call into question things you think are necessary. Debbie has a couple of solar panels and some batteries that allow us to have an extension cord in the kitchen for charging things, having a light, and playing a CD boombox. But other than that, there’s no refrigerator, no dishwasher, no cuisanart food processor (something I've desired for a long while!). All trash has to be hauled off the farm so it makes sense not to create any. We’re in the middle of the forest, so using dead trees for firewood can keep you warm all winter and provide a stovetop to cook meals.
Sitting around one night, Debbie was waxing poetic about how at a permaculture workshop people were lamenting their return to the “real world” and the host flat out told them that this is the “real world.” We’re really growing real food, really creating livable shelters, creating livable communities. What’s so real about the consumer-driven, unsustainable waste land that is created in every suburb, in every American town?
And so maybe that’s how we should think of this trip. Not as putting off the “real world,” but creating and living in a real world. There are people across America that are opting to live in this alternate world that is more real than anything you encounter in the mainstream media. And honestly, people will look at you and ask why you’re being so extreme… but there’s nothing extreme about it! If you have to pee, why would you not go behind a tree and pee?If you have to cook, why would you not build a fire and cook? It is not extreme, it's simple.
So again, as Mary Oliver asks, What will you do with your one wild and precious life?
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