by Sarenth Odinsson, Board Member of Crossing Hedgerows
So much of the work at Crossing Hedgerows is about balance, and where needed, rebalancing. It has been that way since before Crossing Hedgerows was founded. When they moved to Michigan, the Cavanaughs came onto land that had been devastated by industrial farming. You did not see or hear the animals, especially the birds and insects, in the warmer parts of the year. By letting the land lie, by watching what it did and how, they allowed the land to bring itself into its own balance. When they began to live on the land, at last, humans brought themselves back into a reciprocal relationship with the land instead of a merely extractive one.
As we sit in the dead of Winter in Michigan, with its wet and cold, I think of Winter in my years growing up here. Back then, we would have at least a few inches of snow rather than wet, soaked ground. Climate change has disrupted a pattern that, until the last decade or two was as reliable as a Grandfather Clock. Not always absolutely correct in its depiction of time, but close enough. We used to have snow throughout December, sometimes even through the middle of March, without having to be on the west side of the State. We are rebalancing, shifting, and adapting to new ways of things. Water and Earth are showing us the way in Their interplay with Ice, Air, and Fire.
The berms and swales that direct water to different parts of the land is an exercise in balance. Directing water from the places that can disrupt, like the foundation of the house, and bringing it to the trees and other water-hungry plants in the nearby zone, allows for flourishing that otherwise would not happen. The work of caring for this place is an ongoing conversation, more a dance than something static like laying down a pipe and calling it a job well done. This balance between our needs and that of the lands we live on is a living one, lived in communication between us.
The chickens that live here produce excrement on a bed of straw, and when it has broken down, we have made mounds of earth that grow plants for years in the hoophouse. Everything, from the way the chickens forage and live, to how we treat the earth beneath their feet that composts down, becomes part of the balance of how Crossing Hedgerows thrives. We care for the chickens and they feed us. We care for the composting earth and it allows countless plants to thrive in the hoophouse. The land is allowed to rest and it revives, and then thrives, despite decades of industrial farming. There is no ‘waste’; there is earth, and not-yet-earth. We are in an ongoing, looping relationship whatever comes of it.
This balance applies to destruction as well. Recently, a grapevine began to wrap around the yew tree and choke the life out of it. Taking a machete, loppers, and other tools, together with no small amount of blood, sweat, tears, and effort, and the yew tree thrives again. The destruction of the grapevine allows the yew to flourish. The digging of berms and swales, cutting into the earth to direct water, allows for the flourishing of fruit trees and other plants. Cutting down the nitrogen-fixing plants in the chicken yard brings that much-needed resource to other plants, including any garden beds the compost is included in. In death there is life, and in life there is death.
Working as a volunteer on the land is to see, and moreover, to be, in an ongoing relationship with the land and the landvaettir, the land spirits. It is to listen to Them, to respect Them, and to respond to Them in an honorable way. That honorable way respects Them, and it respects ourselves in the bargain.