Farming to Hunt

Personal opinion here (as most of those posted are!) It is my strong belief that everyone who hunts should grow a garden. The act of harvesting animal or vegetable - flora or fauna - are intertwined. All life begins with soil and sun. Reverence can come from the act of tending and harvesting. To harvest without having sown is a danger. It changes our perceptions and allows us to miss out on understanding the full-cycle. We might know it, but we might not practice it. And practice is important, to me.

So as summer wears on, thoughts turn, in this farmer's mind, towards the Fall and hunting. I find myself thinking about elk and pheasant and deer and duck as I tend plants, touch the Good Earth and prepare for the dark seasons ahead. Not to get ahead of the seasons here, but to know that the Winter winds are present, even in the Summer Sun.

And Wildness Appears....

After bemoaning the lack of wildness (the Spirit of it at least) we had a wild weekend of bear and deer and cousins and trampolines.

On Saturday morning I took the dogs for a short hike behind the house. There is a belt, remaining post fire, 50 yards from the house, 25 yards wide, filled with down logs, thick Douglas Fir, moss, arnica, chokecherry and mountain maple shrubs. When the dogs and I got above this thicket, I spotted something I took first for the yellow lab, Libby, then when I noted she was at my heels, I immediately thought it a Mountain Lion, and then "it" turned and faced me, I saw it was a bear - very blonde, smallish.

Our neighbors had reported this bear hanging around their yard. And in an instant, wildness reappeared on our little farm. The bear ambled off and so did we. But the knowledge of her (or him) napping this close to the house, unseen, unheard, not disturbing us, brought back an overwhelming sense of mystery. Something I needed in that moment. Another gift of the forest.

And, I think, that's what we are all called to remember and hold to...at least I know I am....that magnificent discoveries are right here, always - maybe napping - but present. In seeking to farm where and how we do, it's these moments that drive all else. With kids jumping on the trampoline, herbs growing on the mountainside, compost composting, a bear can exist and share home with us. Ah, wildness returns to my soul. 

Planting: Today is a fruit day, tomorrow and Thursday are root days. Friday a flower day. A week to do it all! It's in the Stars.

Wildness

Sometimes it all feels a little too tame. A little, "Unwild". Even here, with reports of a light tan "grizzled" bear from the neighbors, dive bombing hummingbirds, deer tracks in the mud of the creek, with towering pines and scented fir, it feels a little, well, domestic.

We're missing pieces: Bison, Wolf, Grizzly Bear. I am ready for their return. I wait for it, an advent season without known end.

Years ago, when my family first started harvesting bison for part of our year's meat, my Dad put a bison skull on the compost pile behind the barn. It disappeared. Either the Earth swallowed it, or a coyote ran off with it. But my Dad looked for it, and on the prairie looking CAN be a little easier. No sign. I wonder if that's how things start to come back to a place? If a coyote running with a bison skull through the broad prairie below the rolling North Dakota hills can bring the Spirit back and when the Spirit is back, maybe then the physical body can return.

We farm wildynamically - because we're trying to cultivate a Spirit of wilderness in our herbs and in the mountain side and forest of the farm. Maybe this calling forth of Spirit will lead to an incarnation of the wild - maybe it will show up in a displaced Yellowstone Wolf or wandering Wolverine. Or maybe it will show up in me, or Luci, or Jen.

Back of Beyond...a History

Mike J. Hurkes WMA:  30 acres; 7 miles south and ½ mile east of Moffit, along HWY 83; deer, pheasants, sharptails; map sheet 23.

What's in a name? Back of Beyond is an Irish reference to those regions where rock and wildness take precedent, some off-the-beat parcel of land, some unkept portion of earth. In choosing this name for our little farm, we're recognizing that our attempts at eco-farming are happening on the edge of where you might consider farming possible.

The roots of this farm are probably rooted in a few others that have shaped me over the years. Today I am thinking about my Grandpa Hurkes and his land in Emmons County, North Dakota. In a land of rolling small grain fields, sloughs, and the occasional tract of native prairie, there was this one piece of land - a sort of "Back of Beyond" (even though it ran right up against a state highway). It remains a haven for wildlife - mostly native wildlife - and as a kid it was a favored haunt for trapping fox or hunting pheasants. We once pulled a couple of dozen quills out of my hunting dog's snout after she had a run in with a porcupine down by a little water hole.

This Back of Beyond piece of land in an increasingly mono-cultured agricultural setting holds the space of biodivirsity for a large area - a refuge and a place from which to stage migrations into newly unkept lands. The health of the whole county - people, water, crops, soul - is supported by these few acres.

When my Grandfather died, my Uncle Jim made the effort to keep this corner of land sacred and the Mike Hurkes Wildlife Management Area was established. Our mountain farm has its roots in that unkept prairie corner and all other stretches of land we can call - The Back of Beyond.