Jennifer Thiermann

Safe Guards

Everybody thinks, those old apple trees need pruning.

Everybody says, “You really need to do something about the wild pigs.”

Decades of visitors advise us that we should thin our redwoods, run sheep, plant Christmas trees, grow grapes, sell firewood, etcetera.

I tell my sons that we live in beauty that forbids rough handling, that homesteading with a light footprint is the best thing we’ve done.

I say, “Things will go on if you leave them alone.”

Andy Warhol says, “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”

festive gathering
hard beans
in my neighbor’s soup