The adventure of leaving the country farm to find treasures in the city is always an experience. Usually, one that leaves me wanting and glad to come back to my quiet, simple life in the middle of nowhere. Coteau Valley Farm and Nursery definitely is not boring, nor is it lacking in entertainment. However, farm life is definitely not for the soul that seeks constant excitement and the plethora of variety that the city allows. Yesterday, I found myself in a large store filled with everything imaginable, all the variety and endless choices one could perceive. The aisles were full of not one product but ten or twenty choices of that one product. There were so many variants to purchase my head began to explode with the endless. I felt my anxiety grow as I walked down the crowded aisles, running into other shoppers engrossed in the menagerie of wonder and overload. I began to long for the simplicity of nothing and the low sensory of the country. How could one person even decide what to buy, what color, what shape, design, or size? I did finally grab, in reckless haste merchandise I felt would provide for my dwindling wants. Finally and gladly I left the store and navigated the other cars forcing themselves to and fro in the parking lot. I had gained a feeling of an utter letdown and the knowledge that this was not anything of what I was searching for in my day. In fact, fun, excitement, and commercialism became a new sickening thought that beat against my brain like the items falling off the shelves in the overloaded store. Fast forward and I was home. Away from the noise and excitement and hurry of stores and cars. Silence surrounds me on the farm and things do change here, but the change is slow and you can appreciate each endless second of it. Perhaps there are times when you begin to wonder if the slow could creep up a bit but the naw of creeping time, has a charm that comes with it, a certain mystery about it that moves the heart and warms the soul. Much like the winter we had here on the Coteau. It was not at all the normal of winters and the last I checked we had already received 70 inches of snow compared to the usual of about 24 inches, more or less. Every fourth day there seemed to be a blizzard or more snow, endless snow filled the fields like the overflow of the city shelves. The roar of the wind became dizzying at times but the next day the snow on the prairie was white and crisp, disturbed by nothing but the wind which overcomes you and is shocking and fascinating. The scenery has its way of offering a simple, variety. Like the rise of the sun in the morning, not one sunrise looks the same and the endless color that resonates with the sky and land can never be duplicated. But unlike the store you don't have to choose what you want. You just get to enjoy it. Compiled with that, the winter air has a way of biting you in the cheeks in a million harsh ways. In the end, it leaves you invigorated and alive wanting more and knowing it's provided. The ground in the winter freezes cold and hard and is unmanageable and unagreeable, Still, the earth is alive and it lives under you and it loans a look into the still. I love it. It changes me and I know He who created it is the variety and endless plethora of all things, the real treasure is here, it's real. Very unlike the store that vainly tries to emulate the possibility of neverending. The aloneness and nothingness and lack of decision here, it is all provided. The land is and does what it does and you either enjoy the simple beauty and slowness or you enter back into the chaos of the instant and loud. I personally am drawn to simple, what about you?
Coteau des Prairies
South Dakota Hobby Farm
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