Goin Up Yonder

Where did the name Farm Yonder come from? I faintly remember a few weeks after we decided to form a community that we had a discussion about a name. Someone (who?) suggest Farm Yonder and we all agreed fairly quickly. Not vote or anything like that.

Our name always brought to mind the famous gospel song, Goin' Up Yonder. Of course, "yonder" meant "heaven" for the gospel singers and I suppose there was a lot of heaven" at Farm Yonder. At least for me. Below is a video from Youtube of a young gospel singer performing it. The lyrics are below that.


If anybody asks you where I'm going
Where I'm going
Where I'm going soon

I can take the pain,
The heartaches that it brings,
The comforts in knowing I'll soon be gone.

I'm going up yonder (going up yonder)
I'm going up yonder (going up yonder)
I'm going up yonder to be with my Lord.

If God gives me grace
To run this race,
'Til I see my Savior,
I see him face to face.

I'm going up yonder (going up yonder)
I'm going up yonder (going up yonder)
I'm going up yonder to be with my Lord.

Making molasses

This picture shows Gary and Julie using a sorghum press, also called a grinder, to press the liquid out of sorghum cane to boil down to molasses. I think it is Pete in the background who was providing the power that moved the press. I was gone from Farm Yonder when this picture was taken (due to my bad case of histoplasmosis). I viewed this scene as a culmination of self-sufficiency efforts in which I had a hand. While we had prior success in growing a bountiful garden, a goal was to also use as much of the 40 acres of land we had in an agricultural way. Sorghum looks a lot like corn in early summer and many farmers in the area grow it. I think it was widely used in the midwest as a source of sugar until the sugar beet industry in Idaho and the west monopolized sugar production.

One thing hidden in this picture is the story of dealing with insects. I remember that when I first moved to Farm Yonder, mosquitos and chiggers were a terrible problem. They cost me some sleepless nights and a lot of irritation. I forgot exactly how I learned to deal with them, but I do remember one time I dipped a rag in gasoline and wiped my shoes with it, as I thought gasoline was an insect repellent. Maybe we bought repellants. Maybe we got smarter about keeping the place cleaner. Maybe we wore heavier clothes (like Gary in his overalls in the picture). But somehow we learned to cope with the insects and rarely thought about them after we lived there a while.

Building a solar greenhouse

Thanks to Gary, especially, we were aware of alternative energy sources. We couldn't afford gas or oil, but sunlight was free. The plan here was to build a solar powered greenhouse. We began with the back wall (in the picture) facing south. When the whole building was finished, large oil cans filled with water were placed up against the wall. The sun heated the water and the metal cans kept the heat radiating slowly. I see Gary (left), Tony (blond hair in the middle), John/Otis and Al Op (I think, on top.

As I look at the picture I also see two themes of Farm Yonder at play. First is working with wood. Just about everyone but me was good at it, had done a lot of it growing up. Not me, I just read books and played football with my friends. Still, everyone was very happy to teach me and I reached my peak of woodworking skill and fantasy in our loom shop one winter in Eureka Springs.

The other theme was ambitious projects. We felt and often talked about the power of lots of people working together. A feeling that we could do anything and wouldn't it be fun. I think the greenhouse came out of that feeling more than the need to grow food more efficiently.

Kim and Julie in Richmond

A few weeks ago Julie flew into Dayton to visit her daughter, Kim, who now lives in Richmond, Indiana. The three of us got together for the first time since 1973 or about 36 years. Kim was about five years old at that time - beautiful then and beautiful now. Same as Julie. It has been the highlight of my summer to see them both. I had been living within 30 miles of Kim for about 24 years, but I didn't know it since I lost track of both Julie and Kim when I left Farm Yonder and went back to St. Louis. Kim, her husband Jim, and her 3 year old daughter Marin, live in a beautiful house surrounded by trees. Jim is skilled in every aspect of home construction and has remodeled their home and Kim has pursued knowledge of architecture, art, and home decorating for years and years. Together they have created a very graceful environment, an archetype American country home. I can't help thinking that growing up in rural areas of Missouri (Farm Yonder), New York state, and England contributed a lot of Kim's very developed aesthetic values. Its something I share with Kim, love of a beautiful country home on the outskirts of small town in midwestern America.

Kim also has Julie's sense of quiet and strong love. Does anyone ever remember Julie raising her voice? I don't. I recall only Julie intervening in arguments (between Gary, Keith and me usually) by reminding us that peace is a better way. Kim seems like she is the same way. I can't imagine her raising her voice to anyone for any reason.

Mose and Rowdy

Here is a picture of Al (Mose) Oppenheimer and a dog we had. The dog's name was Rowdy. I don't care much for dogs (just ask my wife, Donna), but I liked Rowdy, even when he got the mange. I have always been grateful to Al Op for inviting me to stay with him when I went down to Golden, Missouri looking for my friend, Warren Pake. By the time I came down to Golden, Warren was gone to Brooklyn to work for the Watchtower Society and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Last week I was at my 40th year high school reunion and I ran into Liz Hasler, who was also a friend of Warren's. She recalled that she and I drove down together in an old car I had -- on a whim. I recall feeling that Al Op enjoyed the spontaneity of my arrival and spontaneity in general. He validated a notion that I was forming that life is meant to be lived in the present, not as a part in a script that has already been written. Also from the picture, was there ever a more pristine and beautiful winter than the first year at Farm Yonder. It was enough to make this Jewish raised boy fall in love with Christmas. I remember that we all wanted to make hand crafted presents for each other to capture the spirit of the holiday, of the country setting, of the friendships we had formed.

May Long letter page 1

This is a letter that May wrote to me when I was in the hospital with histoplasmosis. I probably caught it when I was tearing down an old chimney with the intention of rebuilding it on the farm. Birds had pooped for years in the old chimney leaving a lot of the fungus which causes histoplasmosis. May wrote that I was like "a giant pine that has fallen but with the help of my mother and father I would rise again." I love the imagery and recall that May's letter made me feel good in a very difficult time in my life. She continued by writing a lot of news from people on the farm. That reminds me of the way we used to talk: Tony is doing this, Otis is planning that, Keith just finished something else and so on. We were busy putting our community together.

May Long

This is a remembrance of May Long, who lived down the road from Farm Yonder with her husband Tom. She was what I call "a sweet thing." To my knowledge May never had a harsh word for anybody. She welcomed all the kids from Farm Yonder just like a grandmother and shared her simple and loving life with everyone. When I left the farm, May was the only one who corresponded regularly with me and I will share some of her writing in future posts. I think people were what made May tick and her letters to me were full of new and stories about people on the farm and in the neighborhood. May never led a comfortable life or had anything that was fancy or a luxury but it never seemed to bother her. I think she understood that happiness isn't found in possessions or travels, but in loving the people you live with.

Pete

This picture shows me with Pete, the mule, who (I believe) belonged to old Tom down the road. This must have been in the spring. Leaves are on the trees and it was time to plow the garden. Growing veggies in the garden, which was at least 1/2 of an acre, was a highlight of my time at Farm Yonder. Thanks especially to Gary, I learned a lot about how to grow plants. We gave the garden a lot of thought, from ordering seeds from catalogs in the winter to learning how Pete could help us plow the garden, to keeping the garden weeded, to canning food, and much more. I recall that Pete was kind of reluctant to pull the plow but that once he got going, he did well. Especially if he was given time to rest between every row. Before Farm Yonder I had knew nothing about either plowing or disking, but through experience I learned about both and a lot more.

Alan and Julie

Last week Julie came to Richmond, Indiana, to visit with her daughter, Kim, who lives there with her husband, Jim Tanner. Kim works in the development office at Earlham College, where she attended college more than 20 years ago. Kim has been living in Richmond almost as long as I have been living 30 miles down the road in Oxford, Ohio. Julie has been coming to visit her all these years, but I never knew it until Julie located me on Google and called me about a month ago. We had a wonderful reunion and talked for hours abou Farm Yonder. We thought it would be a good idea to have a wider conversation about Farm Yonder to reconnect with old friends and enrich our memories with each other's help. I have a lot of pictures I will post here and use them to job my memory and reflect on Farm Yonder. Hopefully Julie and I can connect with Gary, John (Otis) and Colleen, Al (Mose) and Maren, Keith, Joe and many others who shared the experience of Farm Yonder. I think this will be fun. More later.