Back when we were on the farm, before I was walling full time, we had cows. I slaved day after day bailing hay stacking it, working 50 acres, planting pasture seed, fixing fences and carrying water and getting feed to them.
Then one particularly gruelling hot day of bailing hay, I wiped my sweaty brow and squinting through the dust and humidity, looked up over at my cows grazing contently, and thought, hay, wait a minute! All you cows do is lounge around watching me while I struggle to make sure you have enough food for the winter.
After ten intense years on the land, it seemed the joy of farming had somehow started to dwindle. I began to focus my attention on a far less agricultural pursuit, that of learning what to do with all the rocks I had in my fields.
Farm equipment and rocks don't go together. They smash up on them and get broken all the time. That's why anyone who farms hates rocks and wants to get rid of them.
But I didn't hate them. I enjoyed collecting rocks and got pleasure out of carefully stacking them in piles around the fields .
I realized that hot August day, dreading having 20 more acres of hay to bring in before it got ruined by the rain forecast for the next day, that I was not cut out to be a farmer.
I didn't know it at the time but I was beginning a personal reverse journey in time, sociologically . In terms of the evolutionary path of the Homo Sapien species, I was about to discover what being a hunter gather was all about. And, I was bailing from ever having to do anymore haying. I had decided to become a dry stone waller.
... to be continued
