I grew up in a land known for its abundance of orchards. My great-great-great-grandfather once owned and operated one of many local fruit farms, and my family canned local peaches every year—filling mason jars with peach halves, cinnamon sticks, and a sweet, sticky syrup made from local honey. I always loved the low, graceful bend of the fruit trees, the way they brought color and life to our landscape. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I learned about the orchards’ hidden poisons.
While working on my book, I visited an orchard on the south slopes of Emmett, Idaho. Its owner, Rob, had moved to Emmett decades ago to work as a pharmacist, but the orchard was a side project he and his family both enjoyed investing in. We talked about the soil and climate of the slopes, the difficulties of procuring workers to harvest fruit, federal crop insurance, and the town’s roots as a farming community.
Then Rob told me about the time he found mercury and arsenic sitting in the basement of the town’s 120-year-old pharmacy building. In decades past, farmers used mercury, arsenic, and lead spray in their orchards in an attempt to get rid of codling moths and other pests. The Emmett pharmacist would mix up and sell these substances to local orchard owners, who would use a team of horses to pull the spray line through the rows of trees.
The spray colored apples white with lead. A local fruit farmer’s daughter recalled that her grandfather always kept his horses carefully muzzled or reined up, so they wouldn’t eat while they were pulling the sprayer and get “leaded.”
As I talked to Rob, I realized how little I knew about the history and ecology of my homeland. I missed the orchards, and saw them as more natural or healthy than the suburban development that had taken over Idaho’s farmland. But in reality, the orchards were often unhealthy and damaging forms of land use, with a long-lasting impact on the local soil and ecology. An organic farmer working in Emmett now, seeking to bring health back to the land, told me that you can still find heavy metals and chemicals in the soil where orchards once rested. Last year, a Politico piece on baby food pointed out that heavy metals are present throughout our food supply, deposited there via agricultural chemicals, car exhaust, and coal emissions. They do not degrade, and thus continue to impact the food we eat for generations.
Nostalgia for the past led me to mourn what had been lost in my own lifetime, without ever asking whether I was mourning something that was healthy and whole. By the time I was old enough to observe transformations taking place in my homeland, it was already populated with absences: a loss of topsoil due to decades of tilling, a depletion of native plants and species as commodity farming transformed the land, and a widespread poisoning of water systems and rivers. Hearing about the actual health of this soil, then, showed me how much more I needed to learn. My book changed as a result—I learned more than I ever thought possible about the history of the river valley where my great-grandpa was born. (And there’s still far more to study and research.)
But I’ve continued to think about the implications of that lesson. In a 2015 essay for The Atlantic titled “Farmland Without Farmers,” Wendell Berry wrote of the disappearance of black willows along the bank of the Kentucky River in the early 2000s. The people who noticed their disappearance, he said, weren’t local scientists. They were the people who had lived there long enough (and fished along the river long enough) to notice the change:
“… [S]ince 2002, I have asked everybody I met who might be supposed to know: ‘Why have the black willows disappeared from the Kentucky River?’ I have put this question to conservationists, to conservation organizations specifically concerned with the Kentucky River, to water-quality officials and to university biologists. And I have found nobody who could tell me why. Except for a few old fishermen, I have found nobody who knew they were gone. … I was seeking local knowledge from conservationists and experts and expert conservationists. … But it seems they are not likely to have a particular or personal or long-term interest in such places, or to go back to them repeatedly and often over a long time, or to maintain an economic or recreational connection to them.”
In his essay, Berry asks us to become the sort of people who notice the absence of the black willows: to become students of our places, committed to seeing and tracking changes in our landscapes, and to cultivating a deep knowledge of their history. Local people, he suggests, “[can serve] the local economy and stewardship as inspectors, rememberers, and storytellers.” His words remind me of Robert MacFarlane’s book Landmarks, which calls for a similar reinvigoration of place knowledge.
But beyond the challenge of growing knowledge of what is currently in our place (which is vital and important!), there’s that second challenge I confronted early on in my book project: the challenge of short-sightedness, of nostalgia for a recent past that may not be as lovely or whole as we assume it to be. What came before the willows, and disappeared before them?How do we begin to learn about what we don’t know to miss?
This is, in many ways, the project James Rebanks undertakes in his new book English Pastoral. In it, he isn’t content with a return to the beautiful farm of his childhood; through study and care, through the relationships he forms with local scientists and ecologists, he’s formulated a new understanding of what his landscape ought to look like, and what it will take to restore it.
Addison Del Mastro’s Substack is another incredible example of deep local knowledge, this time in an urban context. With Addison’s meticulous reporting and historical research, the obvious and expected are complicated by a more thorough understanding of how a place has changed and developed over time.
Recognizing that Idaho farms were not (and are not) all healthy, that there’s work left to do in reforming U.S. agriculture, is not a negation of the potential good to be found in farm communities, but rather, a reminder that in the midst of the loss and brokenness, we have more to learn, to consider, and to steward. To truly see and know my region of Idaho for what it was, I have to develop an imagination for its more distant past. It’s a past that was deeply broken. And because of this, when I visit home now, there’s more grief in what I see. But I am also grateful for the opportunity to learn from the past, and to deepen my knowledge of the place I love.
Have you learned anything about your place—your neighborhood, town, or city, for instance—that surprised you?
What are some mediums and avenues for deeper place knowledge we can cultivate? Libraries? Schools? Historical societies?
Are there specific individuals you’ve met in your community who serve as the “inspectors, rememberers, and storytellers” Berry is looking for? How did they get started in that work?
Share your thoughts via email, or in the comments below!
I want to thank everyone for their immense support as my family and I have embarked on this adventure in the UK. (For those who haven’t read or seen in earlier emails: I’m currently pursuing a master’s degree at Oxford University.)
We’re nearly to the end of the first term, and so I wanted to give a brief update on how we’re all doing, especially since so many of you have kindly supported us through subscribing to this newsletter, and it means so much to us.
We moved to Oxford in September, and the term started in October. My husband is at home full-time with our little ones while I commute to school (thankfully very close to where we live). The students and faculty here are incredible, and it’s been a delight and honor to study here. I’m immensely grateful to everyone who’s reached out with advice, offered tips on studying, or connected us with family and friends over here in the UK. We’ve felt very supported and cared for.
I generally study in the library or at Pusey House’s Scriptorium, attend classes, and then head back home before dinner to enjoy time with my family. The girls and I have been reading The Chronicles of Narnia or George MacDonald’s books before bed, and we’ve enjoyed walks around Oxford together on weekends. My husband is a superhero, and has been making incredible meals, homeschooling our oldest, and changing lots of diapers.
We know this is a rare and precious season—and we’re both enjoying it, even though it’s challenging and exhausting at times. This is an opportunity and a privilege I don’t take lightly. I have a lot of work left to do before the end of the term (and even more coming up in January 2022), but am excited for all the writing and coursework ahead!
in other news
In the aftermath of 2020, many states are seeking to create secondary food distribution chains. Ximena Bustillo writes for Politico of online stores started in 2020 that are still serving local customers in states like Florida and Maine (states that are often far more focused on national and global agricultural sales): “What we saw was a natural turn to local farmers and producers. And customers went to great lengths to reach out to farmers and to find other ways to purchase food that they were looking for.”
Laura Bult reports for Vox on the human cost to factory-processed chicken: “America’s proteins of choice once were beef and pork, until the poultry industry found a way to produce a lot of chicken, making it cheap and plentiful. Human workers paid the cost of that productivity as, over the past few decades, poultry processing line speeds have increased to meet this demand.”
Legumes are in high demand, are an excellent source of plant-based protein, and use one-tenth of the emissions compared to a serving of beef. But farmers aren’t planting them. Over at Civil Eats, Lisa Held explains why, and considers the potential for shifting crop production.
“This year’s supply-chain slowdown might be the invitation we didn’t know we needed to live with more intention,” Tsh Oxenreider suggests in a piece at America Magazine. “May this holiday season be more about the simplicity of small things…”
Matthew Wheeland interviews author and sociologist Priya Fielding-Singh about her book on food and inequality in America: “Food access exists in relation to a constellation of other factors and hardships that families experience that in some ways matter even more. We need to be having a broader conversation about what drives nutritional inequality and what it’s going to take to reduce it.”
essays
Kate Cray shares five books (including a new one by Annie Dillard!) that “encourage us to pay attention to all that’s around us—and transport us to wonders in other corners of the Earth.”
“The world has always been a shambles,” Lindsay Crouse writes for the New York Times. “There’s only one thing we can control: How are we going to live in it? Why not try to have a best day right now, maybe even tonight?”
Tara Bynum writes about Phyllis Wheatley’s poetry and laughter for Hedgehog Review: “I’ve never expected Wheatley to be funny. I’ve never imagined her with a sense of humor. But when I read her ‘Now to be Serious’ this time, I realize my mistake. I’ve misread Wheatley, and I’ve missed what she’s saying. I’ve missed her laughter—because, I’ve assumed that Wheatley is writing for me, for my expectations of her.”
“In innumerable ways we bend ourselves to fit the pattern of a techno-economic order that exists for its own sake and not for ours,” Michael Sacasas writes for The Convivial Society. “…What Illich and Ellul would have us consider is that the human-built world is not, in fact, built for humans.”
books
Bird Relics, Branka Arsić
I know my books last month were all about literary criticism and Henry David Thoreau—not much has changed since then. Bird Relics is a fascinating consideration of Thoreau’s radically particular vision of place, and the philosophy of life (which Arsić defines as “material vitalism”) that characterized his thought and writing. She writes of Thoreau’s habit of writing anonymous obituaries for strangers, and argues that Thoreau’s vision for life was radically communal: he believed, Arsić argues, that “Each conventional life on its way to utter anonymity in unmourned death is composed of experiences of unparalleled beauty that makes it uniquely excellent and worthy of commemorating. To lose this uniqueness is thus a loss for all, a communal loss, which is why any member of the community—any traveler—should record, salvage, and so restore it as if it were the member’s own loss.”Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
Thank you to everyone who participated in the book club this fall! It was such a joy reading Hannah Coulter with you, and learning from your insights. The first time I read Hannah Coulter, I don’t think I realized how spare and quiet her voice can be—I didn’t see all the griefs, pains, and bitterness she leaves out, or barely mentions. This time, I was struck by the journey her life represents: from want to contentment, sadness to joy, bitterness to gratitude, all represented in the simple determination to “keep living on.” It is a delightful, lovely book.
food
My daughter is turning six tomorrow (!), and we are celebrating with her favorite meal: simple creamed peas and potatoes, with a loaf of crusty bread. I’ve been asked to make an orange vanilla birthday cake, too—this is the recipe we’re going to try.
My husband made this creamy turkey wild rice soup with some of our Thanksgiving leftovers. It was lovely. (I also love making paninis with turkey, cranberry sauce, and sharp white cheddar post-Thanksgiving. What are your favorite ways to use leftovers?)
Recipes to try: brown butter apple cake, 15 ultra creamy mac and cheese recipes, chai sugar cookies, and whipped goat cheese with warm candied bacon and dates.
listening
I’ve been loving Amanda Holmes’s podcast “Read Me a Poem.” It’s a delightful accompaniment to my commute in the mornings.
About this time of year, we start listening to the Vince Guaraldi Trio on repeat.
One year ago: “Declaring our dependence.”
Two years ago: “Practicing presence.”