Harnessed to the Whole Shebang

No posts recently and no pic today; my computer is down. I have a laptop with a broken keyboard, which I'm using now, but I lack the ability to read my camera card or get to my photographs.

Thus far, my patient, diligent, talented, and much appreciated husband has replaced the power supply and the CPU, and this weekend he's disassembling it all so he can replace the motherboard. This involves re-hosting to a new case, too, because the new motherboard won't fit in the old case. He is a saint.

I'm re-reading Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath". It's been a long time since I read it. I enjoyed it before, but this time it is really striking a chord with me. Steinbeck totally "gets" what it means to live connected to the land. I never really "got" it until we moved here to WV. I probably still don't completely "get" it but having a big garden and a few animals does put one in touch with nature and the cyle of things.

The weather becomes critical: Will the garden get enough water? Can I wash clothes today -- will they dry on the line or stay damp and smell funky?

Little things get noticed more: Bugs become "good bugs" and "bad bugs" and are squashed or celebrated. Likewise with snakes. No longer is there one homogenous group called "bug" or "snake". Heck, until last year I hadn't really looked at bugs since I was a kid.

One thing feeds into another: Garden refuse and kitchen scraps go to the compost, or the rabbits or chickens. The droppings and compost go back into the garden. Round and round it all goes. Very little organic mass is ever thrown away here, and it's somehow comforting to see it all playing together.

Here is a passage from Steinbeck's book that really hit me in the gut. This is what living in the country is to me. I wish I had his gift for portraying it.

I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, an' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' and' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang -- that's right, that's holy.

Yesterday when I was shovelling straw and rabbit poop out of the rabbit colony and taking wheelbarrows full to dump on the blackberries and raspberries, then spreading out fresh straw for the rabbits, I felt kind of harnessed to the whole shebang. It felt good.