Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
Hanging on and letting go…
As humans, we want to hold on to the good things: A perfect day. A good hearty laugh. A job well done. Satisfaction. A great meal. Love.
And yet, as humans, we also hold that all good things come to an end.
I had to let one good thing come to an end last week. As far as things go, a Toyota Tacoma with 356,000 miles on it is at its scheduled end. Perhaps beyond it, since it came to Quill’s End uninspectable several years ago. Alexander got it back on the road, and for 50,000 miles, it served me well. It also served as a great memory, as it was passed onto us by someone we loved, whose time came to an early end.
Now, I vacillate over this little truck’s future. I want to think that it can continue on with the right fix. I want to take it for granted and have it last forever, to hold on to the good thing. I want to know that I’ll still think of my friend while driving down the road, and smile at his relentless kindness.
But for now, I’ll pass it twice a day, still buried in the mud from its last attempt to bring water to the hogs in the lower field, its frame cracked from the force of trying to separate it from the suction of the saturated soil.
Can I take consolation from a search for my next Tacoma? The excitement of the possibility of another good thing? Perhaps another story, another memory can accompany me as I drive and work.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.