Beyond yonder hedgerow

Hello hello!

Oh, where to begin? AT the beginning, I suppose. My trip began at 4 AM on July 31st, when my mom drove me to Josh and Noah's. (Josh and Noah are friends from high school who have an organic vegetable farm a couple of miles up the valley. They were headed that morning to Madison, WI, for the farmer's market, which was conveniently nearby where I could catch the bus to Chicago, where I could catch the plane). My trip continued, at about 4:05 AM, driving back home with my mom to find my plane ticket, which I had realized I didn't have and didn't know where it was. Upon arriving home at 4:10 AM, I quickly found the ticket right where I expected it: in a Fed Ex envelope in the recycling bin. By 4:12 AM, Mom and I were back in the car, trying to chase down Josh and Noah by taking an alternate route that would hopefully intercept the vegetable truck in its path to Madison at a small town named Boaz. At 4:37 AM, as we drove through Boaz, we saw the headlights of the vegetable truck in the distance on the road perpendicular to ours, and by 4:41 AM, after a much too brief departure from my mom, I was in between Josh and Noah, rolling eastward, hurrying the sunrise, headed for the world via the Madison farmer's market.

Since then I have been to or through something like 7 churches, 6 grocery stores, 5 different sleeping arrangements, 4 museums, 3 farmer's markets, 2 farms, and 1 biodome complex. The churches have ranged from St. Paul's cathedral, with an organ and a full choir, to Pentecostals assembled in a park with a couple guitars. The grocery stores have ranged from Planet Organic to Tesco Metro Supermarket. The sleeping arrangements have ranged from a $120/night hotel in Notting Hill to under the stars with waves crashing 30 ft directly below me. Upon telling people that I am studying farming and religion, I have received replies ranging from "Oh, I definitely think there's a connection..." to "Oh, how bizarre."

One of the most interesting places I've been so far was the St. Winnow Barton Farm Museum, located at the end of a lane so narrow that I could barely fit the one small car I drove (driving in England is another story) between the 12 ft high hedgerows. The museum was an old barn packed with plows, tractors, scythes, and all sorts of farming equipment from the last 200 years. This barn sat a couple hundred yards from an old stone church: St Winnow's Parrish, built in the 12th century. Inside the church I read a memorial about Robert Walker, a Vicar of the church in the 19th century who also ran a farm adjacent to the church. I mentioned this to a kind middle-aged lady who was selling burgers at a little stand next to the barn (more on the burgers later). She introduced me to her mother-in-law, Frances, who happened to be the warden of the church. I walked to the bungalow just 40 yards up the hill where she lived, and she invited me in to sit down in her dining room. Frances was a lovely and sharp elderly lady who took neat notes as she asked me about myself and my interest in Robert Walker. As I explained the nature of my study, she became visibly pleased with my interest, because, as she told me, Robert Walker a truly extraordinary man who was perfect for my studies. She explained that he had purchased the farm adjacent to the church so that he could perform agricultural experiments. The intent of these experiments was to improve the livelihood of his parishioners, many of whom were poor and struggling farmers. I read one of his experiments, in which he tested eight different methods for planting wheat. He manipulated the plowing regime and the density of seed sown, and calculated the profit margin for each strategy. He found that the most popular method was among the least profitable of those in his study, in part because yields were actually higher when a lower density of seeds were sown. Ah, the knack of science for exposing the counter-intuitive.

I wonder also about the knack of religion for leading this man down this path. He was an Oxford educated man, active in politics, adept in science, and yet he came to this parish and served the poor farm families there as their vicar, advisor, and advocate. I do not know if going from success at Oxford to rural Cornwall seemed like a counter-intuitive path to Robert Walker's family and friends, but it might seem so to us today. If only I could have a chat with him...

That's about all I can tell you about it detail right now. Oh yes, before I wrap up, the burger. I had one, and it was the most delicious burger I have ever had! It was more like a tender steak with fried onions and cheese on a bun. The beef was produced right on the farm. The farm museum, you see, was actually just one of the outbuildings on this fully operational farm that surrounded the church. The farm had added the museum and turned a small orchard into a camp ground. Many of the small farms in Cornwall, and it seems they are all small, have had to add a tourism component of some kind in order to stay afloat financially. Many farms include bed and breakfasts, petting zoos, hayrides, or other touristy things. There's a lot to think through why this is the case and what the implications are, but we'll save all that for another time.

Thanks for reading all this. There are lots of other things I'd love to tell you about: renting a car and driving on the wrong side of the road, my trip to the Eden Project Biodomes, my four day hike around coast of the the SW-most tip of England, Fruitstock music festival where I took part in a dating game, the rise of organics here and the campaign to make all school lunches organic, the wonder of reading Dickens and Keats in Hyde Park, learning how to be lonely sometimes, how ice cream IS good everywhere you go, and on and on. Please write me if you really want to hear about any of these things, or just to say hi.

All the best to those of you starting school soon. This is the first August in a long time when I have not had that ahead of me; my heart and circannual rhythm are with you.
-Keefe