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Tilling the Past: Longing for the Land and Loved Ones

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For centuries, dedicated men and women have toiled to cultivate crops that sustain life, their labor enriched by nature’s gifts—fish from clear streams, game from dense forests, and wild greens, fruits, nuts, and berries. Fertile land, the backbone of survival, has always been a prize.

Before America’s founding, monarchs granted such land to loyal allies or passed it through noble families, with workers bound to the soil under new lords. Other systems existed, but control over prime land and water often defined power.

Today, that legacy lingers in the sprawling farms we pass on country roads. Driving through America’s heartland recently, I marveled at miles of farmland once alive with rows of corn, beans, tomatoes, okra, and squash, where cattle grazed and chickens scratched the earth. Now, many fields lie quiet, cut for hay or reduced to small gardens near farmhouses. Economic pressures—rising costs, market demands—have pushed families to grow just enough for themselves, no longer feeding neighbors or distant markets. Corporate farms churn out much of what stocks grocery shelves, their scale dwarfing the efforts of traditional farmers. Yet, resilient family farmers endure, raising cattle or crops with grit, their produce often fresher and more wholesome than heavily processed alternatives.

These farms pull me back to childhood summers, when fields burst with life. I can feel the heft of a tote sack as I tugged corn from the stalk, tassels dancing in the breeze, or sliced okra pods with my pocketknife, their prickly skins filling the bag.

Harvest days meant trudging through tomato rows, filling boxes with sun-warmed fruit. At noon, we’d gather under a sprawling oak, spreading tablecloths on the grass. A sharp knife sliced fresh tomatoes, tucked between white bread with salt, pepper, and JFG mayonnaise—a meal so simple, yet rich with the land’s goodness.

By then, our family’s farming was shifting from market crops to self-sufficiency, but I still recall the sweat-soaked days of working for market, each task lightened by shared laughter.

I don’t miss the backbreaking labor, the relentless sun, or the heat. What I crave is the closeness of toiling alongside loved ones, our bond with each other and the land making every effort worthwhile.

May your home—your own patch of earth—yield enough to sustain your family. If it doesn’t, plant a small garden, visit a farmers’ market, or learn where your food comes from. Rediscover the joy of nurturing the land and the community it feeds.

A harvest of hope to sustain us

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As the men folks worked endless hours to bring the harvest home, the women folk prepared the fires and the iron kettles for cooking in preparation for canning what was brought in on the wagons from the fields.

While much of what was gathered was taken to town to sale, enough was stowed by for the host family and all the neighbors’ families helping with the harvest and the canning.

When this crop was laid by, the men would move on to the neighbor’s farm and the women folk to the neighbors yard and kitchen and do it all again with another vegetable crop.

Tomatoes on one farm, corn on another, okra another, beets on another, and when the vegetables were all in, root crops, fruits stowed away, it would be near time for the hogs to be prepared for the smoke house.

Growing and putting back was a constant day-to-day circle of life in the valley below the Gravelly Spur.

All took it in stride and as each season turned and the tasks rotated around the circle of the sun and moon as they shined their light down in the Appalachian valley.

The work would break for church meetings on Sunday, community socials, and an occasional music gathering. When the harvest work was done, the musicians in the valley would gather bringing their guitars, banjos, fiddles and anything that could keep a rhythm to the center of community.

They would stand and play on the porch as the folks gathered in the dirt lane. Old Benson Wills would stand up on an apple box and call the dance.

It was in these moments the young men and women who were not yet spoken for began to smile upon one another even if it was only for the brief swings within do-Si-do.

But the happiness of the passings within the dance often sustained their hearts for days and weeks as the toiling of each day returned their routines, the life, the hardships and the happiness that on occasion brought the ends of their mouths to upturn.

Stoicism was the norm, the happiness was reflected in the hearts rather than their faces oftentimes. It was sometimes difficult to tell the difference between sadness and happiness in many, but anger could easily be distinguished because that usually brought a raised voice and raised hands formed in a fist. \

Thankfulness was visible also, it could take the form of an outreached hand to shake, a bowed head in prayer, or returned unexpected kindness.

When work was done each week, the families gathered to give the Lord thanks in the chapel, sing songs, and hear the scriptures.

It was these times and the music gatherings that eased the in between.

When we look at our own lives in this ever spinning modern world, may we find the comfort that sustained our ancestors in the much harder lives that they lived.