In the Wilderness

In Virginia, there is another Wilderness. A patchwork of cleared fields and thick, choking forest, lying halfway between Richmond and Washington D.C., it is a place burdened by history. Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Courthouse, The Wilderness. These battlefield names evoke the agony and horror of a tightly-packed crossroads region, witness to the most concentrated fighting of the entire American Civil War.

 

These are the hallowed grounds we now call home. Our little place, our homestead, is a six-acre slice of thickets and dense woods. Spindly, desperate trees compete upward with each for the sunlight above. Frequently they crash down for lack of girth. On the forest floor, bramble vines with thorns like needles cover the ground. They catch, entangle, and stab anyone who dares traverse these haunts. This is the very same wilderness that caught fire in May of 1864, burning alive hundreds if not thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers shot down in the thickets.

 

It is a place in need of restoration. Even in 1864, this was second-growth forest. In many places, the once rich topsoil was destroyed by tobacco farming in the 1600 and 1700s. Abandoned, these depleted lands reverted to wilderness. Now, underneath it, the soil on our homestead is clay and rock, packed hard as asphalt, that defies easy cultivation.

 

And so here we are, six acres of (mostly) brambles and trash trees (there are a few, hardy oaks amongst them), anchored underneath by a lattice of rocks buried in barely-porous clay. We must ask - Is there yet redemption for this little piece of the Wilderness?

 

There is a movement underway in this country, just below the consciousness of most suburban and urban dwellers...you might call it a sub-culture, that seeks restoration. One hears the term homestead. Then there's something about permaculture and the importance of sylvopasture. What are these funny words? And what is all this about raising animals and plants together to restore life and soil and health to the land, and the people who dwell on it.

 

This is not a movement of giant corporations. It is, rather, an underground surge

of the many who find their lives, their food, their communities, their relationships,

and their sense of self torn asunder, atomized, isolated, and corporatized. Surely,

there have to be better ways to grow, eat, live, share, and ultimately, pass on to the

next generation-things done at a personal level.

 

If you don't yet understand, that's OK, it's a homestead thing. Yes, at times it sounds

hokey, but once you make a commitment to connect with your roots (literally and

figuratively), you will not want to go back. You're never going to get it completely

"right," but through PETEnELLA, we want to share our journey,

and maybe bring a few along with us.