When we were in Newfoundland we spent time with friends from our first pastorate after ordination. All four of their teens were in our youth group and we have stayed in touch and visited several times through the decades. They treat us like family.
Julia and Lewis have spent the 47 years of their married life on several acres situated right by the sea. They have never had much money but they have lived a simple yet rich life in this beautiful location. They are very involved in their church, they have a strong circle of friends, and they have come as close to self-sufficiency as any people I have ever met. Lewis hunts (moose, rabbit) and he still fishes for cod even though he is retired. He used to be a lobster and salmon fisher. Together they grow vegetables in abundance, using mulched seaweed as fertilizer. They have more than 20 fruit trees, and all manner of berries. And they frequent the bogs and back country in search of other berries. The garden in the photo is perhaps a quarter of the total.
They have a root cellar, three big freezers, and a store room with hundreds of bottles of food they have put up. If something catastrophic happened in our world they would be fine for months.
I got them to pose in their potato patch a la Grant Wood's painting American Gothic. Rather than holding a pitchfork Lewis has the bone handled fork he has used to eat dinner for more than thirty years. Why the potato patch? Last year they grew more than 4000 pounds of spuds, selling them to friends and neighbours.
Does anyone else admire folk who have figured out how to be rich without much money?
4 comments:
It's too bad that I've been spoiled by technology, and commercialism. I greatly admire your friends.
I bet there is some terrific jam made from those berries.
David, even before reading your question at the end, I was thinking that these people are "richer" than the vast majority of us. They know how to live, and are not caught up in material possessions like many are.
I would love to "live off the land" and have a simple yet fulfilling life. I have no desire to have a big, expensive house and a sports car. Well...okay, maybe the latter!!
"Salt of the earth" comes to mind. I always look forward again to "getting to know" our favourite local farmstand family each summer. I see the land around them being snapped up by developpers so know that in these, their golden years, they could choose a much easier route but they don't. I have great admiration for them, like Julia and Lewis, through simplicty they seem to have figured out what truly matters.
I would say we all get used to our creature comforts, sjd, whether they actually improve our quality of life or not.
It's interesting that while Julia and Lewis live simply they are not impoverished by any means. He drives a late model pick-up (no sports car Johnny), although it has no "bells and whistles" and they paid cash. They have a satellite dish, but no computer or internet. They travel to Ontario to visit a daughter and her family. No credit cards!
I should add that they are incredibly hard-working. J is 67 and L is 74 but they still toil away with vigour.
Salt of the earth is correct Laura.
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