My grandmother grew up on a farm in Texas somewhere near Mineral Wells and spent her entire adult life determined to never set foot on one again. I think she equated life-on-the-farm with being looked down on, impoverished and "low class."
She wasn't one to put on airs, but once she got away from that life, she wanted nothing more to do with it ... ever. But she married a man who longed to be a farmer. One look at all the Earth in his chart and it's clear he was designed to be one.
My grandmother wouldn't hear of it though, so to please her, he became a carpenter, a builder, an artist with lumber and tools. He started his own general contracting business and made a very good living at it. But when they divorced after more than 20 years together, he went back to his original dream, bought 40 acres in rural Arkansas just outside El Dorado and took up farming on his own land as a second job.
His home there was set in a jewel of a place, with trees and trails, pastures and a year-round pond he stocked every year with bass, trout and perch. When I was a child, his farm was my favorite place in all creation. It had cows, goats, sheep and pigs. Chickens and ducks. Dogs, cats and kittens, and rabbits. And that pond ... a real-life fishing hole, just like in the movies.
When we began to visit regularly, my grandfather bought four Shetland ponies ... three mares and a stallion. A mean little rascal named Lightning who would sooner bite you as look at you -- so you had to watch yourself around him. But oddly, he was the most agreeable of the bunch to ride -- well-trained and willing, and just ornery enough to be interesting.
There were new colts every year -- new babies of all kinds. To me the place was heaven on earth. If I could have lived there forever, I'd have signed on in a heartbeat. It had a half-acre garden my grandfather tilled with a tractor ... and where they grew every vegetable known to man. Cucumbers, beans, peas, radishes, potatoes, carrots and corn, turnips and beets. Row after row of something different. I won't even try to name them all.
His new wife had a small herb garden off to the side. She made her own spices (and home-made sausage). She canned and froze what they harvested for the winter, stored on shelves and in four huge chest freezers they had in the basement.
There were fruit trees all across the back yard. I would practically eat myself sick on green apples and plums. I couldn't imagine why anyone would choose to live any other way -- if they had any say in the matter at all.
For several years I tried to convince my parents to sell our house, buy some land and take up that lifestyle. Until I was finally ordered to stop talking about it. After three years in Dallas, my family moved to Denver ... no longer a five hour drive to El Dorado or a six hour drive to Lubbock where my grandmother lived. Colorado was a foreign country. I never learned to like it. I was so glad when we finally left.
I saw my grandfather two ... maybe three more times. He died when I was 24. I never saw Arkansas again. Our last conversation was a long distance call. I was in Tucson. He was still in El Dorado. Life for both of us ... everyone in the family ... had suddenly turned bewildering and sad -- reached on a journey that covered far more distance than mere miles.
But in those years of my childhood ... when I was 8 to 11, the golden hours and sun-drenched days I spent on his farm left their mark ... like the mosquito bites I wore by the dozen ... carried in memories so vivid it's like part of me still lives there, with my pony to ride, surrounded by all kinds of babies ... and all the green fruit I can reach.
Although sometimes the background pictures in our visual essays support the topic and text, they don't always. Sometimes the connection is clear. Sometimes it's symbolic and subtle. Sometimes, there's no connection at all.
The scenes depict landscapes and natural features, buildings and wildlife. They were chosen because they show something lovely or interesting ... or simply because the photo appealed to me.
Our spectacular and remarkable planet is changing at astonishing speed. Rarely are these changes for the better. Few people seem to know ... or care ... or have the will and power to do anything about this. It may not be long before the world humans have known and lived in for centuries is forever lost. We certainly won't be able to make repairs as fast as we destroyed it.
So a few years ago I began collecting pictures of the way things were ... and still are for now, a record of the beauty we have while it is still ours to love and honor.
The photos here are part of that collection, with sincere thanks to the artists who saw these moments ... and with their cameras ... preserved them. All of us at Enchanted Spirit are profoundly grateful to them for their generosity and skill ... and for the added grace, depth and dimension their art brings to ours.
Original images used under this Creative Commons license or this Creative Commons license and modified by added text.
