MiniBury

Brought to you by the Addison Independent

  • Home
  • About MiniBury
  • Archives
  • The Addison Independent
  • Sign up for the newsletter
  • Events Calendar
  • Summer Camp Guide 2022*
  • Stuff To Do

Faith Gong: Why Keep A Garden, Chickens, Or Children?

05.14.2020 By: Faith, Guest Blogger

This will likely be a short column, because we are in the midst of putting in our garden.

I have a complex relationship with my garden — as, I suspect, do many. Starting around March, a feeling that has lain dormant throughout the winter begins to stir in me: panic. Suddenly, I feel the urge to start drawing up a planting schedule and ordering seeds. This feeling intensifies as the days lengthen. By the time we start planting, usually in late April, my panic has been replaced with a lingering guilt. I feel guilty if I’m not out working in the garden when the weather is fine. When the forecast calls for rain, I am almost always relieved; nobody would expect me to be out working in my garden in the rain, would they?

Yet I will tell you that I love gardening.

This year, our gardening season has overlapped almost exactly with the COVID-19 quarantine. I hear that more people are planning to put in gardens this year, driven perhaps by the desire to have a food source that doesn’t involve navigating grocery stores, or inspired by more unscheduled time at home. But I wonder how many people shared this thought along with me, as I pulled on my garden gloves and picked up my shovel: Finally! Something I can control!

A global pandemic, a virus that experts still don’t entirely understand, and a quarantine that continues to stretch on; as my husband says, “The only thing we can be certain of right now is uncertainty.” 

Putting in the garden this year felt like it just might be something of which I could be certain, my own little kingdom of dirt and seeds. 

And, as it does every year, my garden showed me quickly how wrong I was. Planting a garden with the belief that you can control it is about as delusional as having children for the same reason.

There were frustrations from the get-go. Some of my attempts at conception failed: Fully half of the seeds I started indoors refused to germinate for reasons that I still can’t puzzle out.

“What happened to your arms?!?” my daughter gasped at dinner after I’d attempted to weed the raspberry patch. The raspberry bushes had responded to my efforts as gratefully as sulky teenagers denied a request to attend a late-night party.

Then there was the hour I spent hunched over the strawberry plants, which had weeds entwined among their runners. Freeing the patch of weeds without ripping up the strawberries themselves would have required tweezers and surgical precision. It reminded me of those tortuous discipline decisions we make as parents: How do I deal with this behavior without crushing my child’s spirit and destroying what makes them unique? 

This is just the start, mind you: There are months ahead in which the weather will surely be either too wet or too dry, in which certain plants will refuse to come up despite my care, and in which I will never be able to stay ahead of the weeds. 

In fact, the more I think about it, embarking on gardening — like embarking on parenting — is a guaranteed way to feel completely out of control. 

So why do we do it? 

A few days ago, our chicks arrived. We are raising just four chicks this year, to replace the hens a hawk picked off over the winter. As with gardening, I hear that more people are considering poultry keeping in this quarantine culture. On the same day that our chicks came, a friend emailed from California to ask my advice about raising chickens. When I re-read my response to her, I was horrified: My list of cons far outweighed the pros. 

Among the negatives of chicken keeping: Buying supplies and food, daily chores, waste disposal, and — in our experience, at least — birds that are not the cuddly pets promised by their chick days. My positives? Eggs, of course. Teaching children responsibility and the care of living things — assuming that they do the poultry chores, which, in our family, is extremely sporadic and seasonal. My final positive was that chicken keeping teaches children about death, which, on further consideration, may not belong in the “positive” category. 

Were I to make a list of reasons to garden, or to have children, I suspect that it would be similarly unbalanced.

Despite hours of labor this season, my garden will be far from perfect. Despite pouring out love and sacrifice on their behalf, my children will be far from perfect. Despite organic feed and piles of shavings and a secure coop, my chickens will be far from perfect. 

So why do we do it? 

Here is what I wish I’d told my friend who asked about chickens: Our motivation for raising any living thing should not be a desire to feel “in control,” or because the positives outweigh the negatives, or that these things will give back to us more than they take from us.

I believe that, somewhere in the deepest, most instinctual recesses of our being, we have an urge to nurture life. Life is fragile, fleeting, and unpredictable, and our efforts to promote it may fail more than they succeed and cause us to feel panic and guilt. But life is also a miracle, and whenever we seek to nurture it, we get front-row seats to that miracle: to the ripened strawberries we pick from our garden, to the mature chicken laying her first egg, to the child who turns back with a smile and a quick hug before running full tilt into the future. 

So by all means plant a garden, keep chickens, and raise children — not because of what they do for you, but because you love them.

Faith Gong has worked as an elementary school teacher, a freelance photographer, and a nonprofit director. She lives in Middlebury with her husband, five children, assorted chickens and ducks, one feisty cat, and one anxiety-prone labradoodle. In her “free time,” she writes for her blog, The Pickle Patch.

Related Posts

  • Faith Gong: On Thin Ice

    This Thanksgiving, I wondered whether Californians discuss their lawns the way that Vermonters discuss their…

  • Faith Gong: The Greater Good

    In order for me to have time and quiet in which to write this column,…

  • Faith Gong: A letter from quarantine

    I wasn’t sure what this column should be about. Then, I wasn’t sure if I’d…

Faith, Guest Blogger

Faith Gong has lived in Addison County since 2011. She is the mother of four daughters and wife of one assistant professor. When she's not homeschooling, dog wrangling, doing laundry, baking, gardening, or drinking coffee, she writes the “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent and her blog, The Pickle Patch.

Upcoming Events

May
16
Mon
10:30 am Toddler Play & Read @ Lawrence Memorial Library
Toddler Play & Read @ Lawrence Memorial Library
May 16 @ 10:30 am
Visit with librarian Marita in this small-group setting for the opportunity to connect with your library community. We kindly request that parents/caregivers and children, if able, wear a mask.
May
18
Wed
9:15 am Drop-In Storytime With Miss Tricia @ Ilsley Library
Drop-In Storytime With Miss Tricia @ Ilsley Library
May 18 @ 9:15 am – 10:00 am
Children ages 5 and under and their caregivers enjoy stories and songs with Miss Tricia!
9:30 am Vergennes Playgroup @ Vergennes Congregational Church
Vergennes Playgroup @ Vergennes Congregational Church
May 18 @ 9:30 am – 11:00 am
Addison County Parent Child Center and Evergreen Preschool are excited to announce they will be starting their playgroup again. Come join the fun every Wednesday for the month of May at the Vergennes Congregational Church.
9:30 am Virtual Mama Group @ Zoom
Virtual Mama Group @ Zoom
May 18 @ 9:30 am
Meet other mamas in this virtual gathering led by Middlebury mom Angela Scavo. Email Angela for the meeting link.
10:30 am Tot Time Open Gym @ Middlebury Rec Center
Tot Time Open Gym @ Middlebury Rec Center
May 18 @ 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
Burn through some energy with tricycles, hula hoops and other ride-on toys in the town gym!
3:30 pm D&D @ Ilsley @ Ilsley Library
D&D @ Ilsley @ Ilsley Library
May 18 @ 3:30 pm
We’ve got dungeons! We’ve got dragons! We’ve got shiny dice! On Wednesdays, any and all middle schoolers can come beat the villain (or your DM)! Participants will create characters, paint a minifigure to act as [...]
May
19
Thu
10:30 am Bixby Storytime @ Bixby Memorial Library
Bixby Storytime @ Bixby Memorial Library
May 19 @ 10:30 am
Join the Children’s Librarian in the Bixby Library’s Community Room for stories, songs, and rhymes. This program is designed for preschool-aged children and their caregivers. Kids of all ages are welcome!
10:30 am Bristol Storytime @ Lawrence Memorial Library
Bristol Storytime @ Lawrence Memorial Library
May 19 @ 10:30 am
Find Marita, her ukulele and friends downstairs at the library for stories, songs, and activities.
10:30 am Tot Time Open Gym @ Middlebury Rec Center
Tot Time Open Gym @ Middlebury Rec Center
May 19 @ 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
Burn through some energy with tricycles, hula hoops and other ride-on toys in the town gym!
12:00 pm New Moms Connection Group @ Zoom
New Moms Connection Group @ Zoom
May 19 @ 12:00 pm
Chat with other local moms who are in their first year postpartum. This weekly Zoom group is hosted by Alison Underwood, counselor and social worker at Porter Women’s Health. Call or email her for consent [...]
View Calendar
Add
  • Add to Timely Calendar
  • Add to Google
  • Add to Outlook
  • Add to Apple Calendar
  • Add to other calendar
  • Export to XML

Helpful Websites

  • Addison Central School District
  • Addison County Readers
  • Addison County WIC page
  • Addison Independent
  • Addison Northwest School District
  • Bristol Recreation Department
  • Building Bright Futures
  • Experience Middlebury
  • Find and Go Seek
  • Ilsley Public Library
  • Junebug
  • Kids VT
  • Let's Grow Kids
  • Mary Johnson Children's Center
  • Memorial Sports Center (Ice Rink)
  • Middlebury Area Land Trust (MALT)
  • Middlebury College Events
  • Middlebury Community Music Center
  • Middlebury Parks and Recreation
  • Middlebury Weather
  • Mount Abraham Unified School District
  • National Association of Education of Young Children
  • Rikert Nordic Center
  • Simon Says
  • Snow Bowl
  • VT Dept. of Health
  • WIC Health

Copyright © 2022 · Modern Blogger Pro Theme By, Pretty Darn Cute Design