If you are a daily reader of this blog, you know that I
visited the inner woods cabin of naturalists John Burroughs over the weekend.
It is called Slabsides and is located near the city of New Paltz in upstate New
York.
That visit inspired me to read a number of Burroughs’
writings from his lifetime of literature from the mid-eighteen hundred until
1921.
Recently I walked the lower meadow of my property. It is
bordered on one side by a rock wall. I understand in this part of my regions a
rock wall is called Irish stone.
I guess it comes from the immigrant farmers and workers who
farmed this land and built the rock walls long before I came here and bought
this property.
Burroughs once wrote: “A stone wall with a good rock bottom
will stand as long as a man lasts. Its only enemy is the frost, and it works so
gently that it is not till after many years that its effect is perceptible….
Every line of fence has a history; the mark of his plow or
his crowbar is upon the stones; the sweat of his early manhood put them in
place; in fact, the long black line covered with lichens and it places
tottering to the fail revives long-gone scenes and events in the life of the
farm.”
What a powerful writer and now one of my favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment