“The chamber pot marks the corner of your land.”

In 1979, every farmer in West Fulton over the age of 60 knew about the distinct marker that defined the boundary of our property.  I’ve no idea how long that rusty pot hung from a branch, or who hung it there, but it seemed a more effective property marker than posted signs.  

What was more peculiar was that this back corner, hidden away from the road, should be a publicly known feature of the landscape.  

These thoughts are running through my mind as Bob and I tackle our big project for the week.  We’re clearing the old logging roads that once ran through the farm, opening them up as a trail for hiking, skiing and snow shoeing.  Today, this feels like a natural progression in the development of our land. I’m imagining our different vacation rental guests enjoying these spaces with their children, or climbing the steep hillsides and drinking in the views of the mountains and pastures.  Ten years ago I’d have sneered at the prospect of a vacation rental.  I’d have sneered at the prospect of sharing this land with strangers.  We’re a production farm, not a tourist destination, I’d have told you.  

These old logging routes were fairly clear when we moved in forty years ago, when they became stomping grounds for my brother and me as we searched out old apple orchards, hunted for trout through the stream, or just raced our raging teenage hormones on cross country skis.  The chamber pot was a regular feature for us; a comforting marker in the wilderness letting us know where we stood.  But these secret places were ours alone. By the time we were teenagers, they were no longer community knowledge.

The  older generation knew each other’s land because they shared so many resources; from tools and hands, to meals and swimming holes.  They planted and harvested and cut hay as teams of neighbors.  A family might own a piece of ground, but the community very often worked it. That’s how Sanford and Ruth, who ran the farm up the road that became my second home, along with Sanford’s brother Orin, were able to show us where all the neighbors cut ice from our back pond.  They showed us the remains of a blacksmith’s forge behind our house; they showed us where they used to sit to play cards when visiting.  It only made sense that they would know about the chamber pot, even if their land didn’t adjoin our parcel.

And while their old ways of neighborly engagement pervaded my life, they were quaint relics of a time gone by.  Because I was growing up in a rapidly changing farm culture.  The “real” farming culture I was coming to know at that time was different.  While Ruth, Sanford and Orin made their way into obscurity during the farm crisis, the next generation of farmers of Schoharie County, like many around the country during the 1980s,  faced a different reality.  Farmers stopped sharing tools or the harvest for fear of reduced yields.  After the creameries were shut down, they stopped meeting up to drop off their milk cans. Instead, at the insisitance of the dairy cooperatives, they borrowed money, installed bulk tanks, and let the milk truck come to them.  Then they eyed each other to see who could do better – produce more, own newer machinery, buy the next parcel of land.  The idea that we’re all in this together faded away to be replaced by a new mantra: Get big, or get out.

Farming became a race to the bottom, a bass ackwards competition to sell more and earn less.  And the suffering that resulted happened behind closed doors.  Alcohol abuse, depression and domestic violence all ensued.   Farmers didn’t talk to each other the same way anymore.  We didn’t share our tools, we didn’t share our land, we didn’t share our secrets.  

The chamber pot on the corner of the property fell into obscurity. Mom and Dad managed to buck the trend of conventional farming when they chose to forego the big machinery, keep the livestock out on the pastures, sidestep commodity production and start talking directly to the community about buying their food. But the mountain views, the trail along the creekbed — the wonders that unfolded back behind the barn — were secrets.  In this post-crisis era, our economic survival has depended on engaging more broadly with the community, but buffers and boundaries remained.   Ruth and Sanford’s generation helped us stay tuned in to our neighbors and community, but the farm crisis still left us with an innate protectiveness.  We’d have dreamy conversations over coffee together, where Dad and Bob would imagine how many bird watchers these trails and pastures could thrill; or I would picture a family from the city introducing a little one to a crayfish; or Mom would vision hikers enjoying the vast views.  But somehow, that farm crisis seriously rusted away our ability to trust.  Our fears too often prevailed:  people will destroy it – people will do something stupid and get hurt  — people will sue …

But in the last ten years, our community faced down far more severe threats — hydro-fracking, the loss of our post office, and gas pipelines, to name a few.  For a few years, it felt like every six months we were confronted with the potential loss of either a fundamental natural resource, or a necessary rural service.  I can’t help but wonder if we were protecting everything so much, that our world had become invisible.  And that invisibility opened us up to far greater problems.   We are just starting to understand that the surest way to protect the land isn’t to keep people off it, but to allow them to fall in love with it.   

I can tell from the rumble of the tractor that Bob’s turned the corner and headed up the side hill to the top pastures.  I’m still working along the valley floor with my lopping shears.  I continue along, snipping, dragging, tossing debris off to the sides when I see it — something white, under a tangle of brush.  I pull the branches aside and find it on the ground, the old rusty chamber pot, still intact.  I wrest it from bushes and find a twig to hang it, just as it has hung for the past 100 years.  As I do, I picture the families who have stayed with us at the vacation rental this summer — from New York, Boston, California, Ohio, even India.  I recall their faces, their smiles, their stories.  They’ve unraveled this introverted child of the farm crisis and made me want to share beyond my wildest dreams.  Collectively, they’ve inspired Bob and me to stop dreaming and do the work to recover these trails for them.   I step back and behold the mighty chamber pot. I wonder how many more people will love and cherish this place, how many more people will hold it sacred, and how many more people will come to know this as a familiar landmark.