Thursday, March 6, 2008

Land In Ohio

Well, now that I've opened that can of worms about the possibility of moving back to Ohio, I want to share some books I've been reading. One of them is "Truck" by Michael Perry. Kate recommended it to Ken to read when she was here but after we got it out of the library I got to it first when he started reading the other Michael Perry book, "Population 485." "Truck" is his story about small town life in Wisconsin, about a 1951 (1952?) International Harvester truck, and about love. Kate said she loved his voice and I think I understand what she means: style, vision, center of gravity, etc. but what I loved about the book was his total reverence for every aspect of his life. This is the first nonfiction reading I've done for a while and it was wonderful. My son has also been asking me to read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," so I have started that as well. It is extremely well written and considering that it is basically about the politics of food, specifically corn, I'm amazed at how hard it is to put down.
I'm not going to become a farmer at the age of 65, but these readings make me consider how little trouble the chickens and goats were for the 8 to 14 year olds on "Kid Nation," and how much satisfaction they gave. Ken and I (mostly him) have gardened for quite a few years now; we love our tomatoes and herbs and it isn't such a stretch to imagine expanding a little and starting to preserve food in ways that I have seen my mother do in those few years we lived on a farm.
So Ohio is a least up for consideration, given that land values there are more in range of our retirement income. We shall see what we shall see!

2 comments:

Kate Markey said...

This one makes me wanna cry!
Kate

Dieverdog said...

Oooh.... (yes!) Keeping my fingers crossed! (I may have a permanent cramp in them by the time you guys sort this out!LOL)