Ryabuhino was just thawing out and beginning to bud when I left. Planting season was just a few weeks away. How I wanted to be there to plant a garden, and to tend it as the baby shoots came up searching for the sun. But, alas, not this year...again. It was time to be off for Lithuania, then America, then India, before finally returning to what will be mature plants bearing fruit. That part will be good—plucking the fruits and preserving them for next winter.
We went over the garden plan in some detail prior to my departure. The big unknown was: who are we planting for? Who is going to be with us next winter that we should count in the volume of food?
Unlike city life, living with nature forces us to think ahead. In the city whenever you need food you simply go to the store and buy it. The planning required is no more than the distance between the wallet and the refrigerator and pantry. See what’s in the pantry, see what’s in the wallet, and plan accordingly. It’s hardly ever more than two weeks in advance.
But the village life is different. There we have to think waaaay ahead—for preserving, for harvesting, for cultivation, and for planting. We start with the end in mind: how many mouths must we feed next April and May, before the new plants are up? There are almost eight months of food storage that must be planned for—from October to May. There are still some fresh foods from the garden even in October if it is planned carefully, but the need will be there for what has been set aside. The Broccoli family will be giving foods into late October and even November: broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are plants that like the cold. Cabbage is also there, but we will be having enough cabbage later—all winter long in fact. Other plants can be extended into the cold months using cold frames mulch covering.
So planning means looking at how many people will be fed and what are the food requirements of each—how many quarts of tomatoes, beans, pickles, squash, jams, etc. will be required? How much eggplant, tomato, zucchini, apple, pear, etc. need to be dried and stored? How many kilos of potatoes, beets, carrots, cabbage, turnips, wheat, buckwheat, etc. need to be put away in the cold cellar? All of this needs to be thought of while there is still snow on the ground. What to speak of human requirements, we also need to think of Kartika and her expected calf—they are going to need lots of corn and other grains, and about 20 kilos of hay each day for 4 months (Dec-Mar), which means that 60 kilos of grass need to be cut each day for four months.
Now that we know what we need we have to plan for the manpower requirements to meet those needs. Do we have enough able-bodied people to do the work? In modern society technology and machines allow a few men to do the work of many. But at Ryabuhino our high technology consists of nothing more than a wheelbarrow, and a bicycle. Well, ok, we have a chain saw too, but that doesn’t do the work of planting and harvesting. Without machines the help of many is required. In former years all the people of the village would participate in planting and harvesting—from the age of 6 or 8 to 60 or even 80. That collective effort to produce what would be consumed collectively gave a sense of community that a trip to the grocery store can’t come close to reproducing. Where are those people going to come from? Well, we have some volunteers that come on weekends and when they have time. They do this because they recognize the need for developing a sustainable model for living on the earth, and are willing to do their part to make it a reality. We shall see by September whether they were enough.
I wish that I could have been one of them, but my work takes place on another level—global these days. With the fresh printing of “Spiritual Economics” the books have to go out and the message carried far and wide. The message of Gitagrad has to go out to attract supporters that will contribute what we do not want to grow in the field—money (because it spoils the natural relationships). So I took off for other parts of the world hoping that when I return I will be greeted with a cornucopia of plenty, and rolling up my sleeves, begin to prepare the bounty for next winter’s meals.
This lifestyle reminds us every day of how dependent we are on the Lord’s mercy. If He sends sufficient rain we will be able to eat next winter, if not, then we are going to be in want. Modern man wants to eliminate this dependency with the use of pumps and pipes to distribute the water that should be delivered by nature. That has, of course, continued to feed the world that would long ago have perished as a result of their wanton ways (rain comes from sacrifice—no sacrifice, no rain. No rain, no food. No food, no life). But we prefer to do things the old-fashioned way of depending on God. Doing so over a period of time conditions us to seek His shelter and mercy, to place ourselves in His care, and beseech His protection. We are under His care anyway, but living the way that He has given us helps to remind us of that fact, and so helps us to cultivate more than the garden, but a proper relationship with Him. Thus the village life gives us more than simplicity—it gives us a relationship with God that can never be experienced by those living an artificial way of life in the city.
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