I recently had lunch with a friend I've known for more than thirty years. Hang with someone that long, and you get to know a lot about them. I've found it true, with the people I have known through youth into at least some age, that they don't change much. What was so then is so now. This woman, I'll call her Sally, has always prized what she calls "freedom" more than almost any other aspect of life.

What she means by freedom is mainly to not be under obligation. She doesn't see the point of having, for example, children. Or pets. Or livestock. She enjoys gardening, but makes sure all her plants are on an automatic watering system so she can leave whenever she wants to.

She hadn't been to my place for at least five years, so I gave her the tour of the Farmette. We petted the goats, who happened to be home during the day since they are working on grazing down the firebreak behind our house. As we paused by the milking shed, she asked, "What do you do when you want to go on vacation?"

I shrugged. "I just don't go on vacation. I guess I could go somewhere when my goat is dry; I have a friend who farmsits but he doesn't milk." Another mutual friend of the same vintage who was with us put in, "Some people would consider the way she lives a vacation in itself, and wouldn't see any reason to leave." Sally looked unconvinced.

Back in the house, Sally leaned over the table and said in a genuinely puzzled voice, "So, why do you do it? It just seems like so much trouble. I mean, I just don't get it. Why not just buy milk and eggs at the store?"

I pointed out that my family went through a gallon of milk and two gallons of yogurt a week, which, if you buy organic, is really very pricey. Ditto free range organic eggs, which still don't taste half as good as ours. But that isn't the real reason.

I told her that a couple days ago I had taken my dogs up north a ways, to practice on other people's stock. After I got mad at her for being too pushy, Bonnie started minding, and did some nice parallel driving of goats she had trouble even fetching at a reasonable pace a couple weeks ago. She gate-sorted a large flock of sheep for me as well. Ty showed me his confidence was continuing to build. We did zigzag fetches in a big field, which he was rock steady with, and worked on not slicing on his (still very short) gathers, making some progress there.

Driving home, stopping at an oceanside farm for a half flat of what might be the best strawberries in the world, coastal Californian organic strawberries, I had an unusual realization: hey, I'm happy. My dogs were passed out in the back of the car, damp and smelling faintly of algae from the stock tank. They were happy too.

Truth is, I haven't changed any more than Sally has. Happiness has always been elusive for me, so I treasure it when it comes. Being with and taking care of animals has been one of the few endeavours which consistently bring me a feeling of groundedness, usefulness, connectedness: joy. Producing wholesome food for my family also makes me happy. I've had the dream of living a life free of dependence on commercial anything for at least as long as I've known Sally. Combining these two happinesses—when it works— is pretty ideal. But it's hard to explain, somehow.

Freedom is one of those words that people don't examine as closely as they ought to. That useful slogan, 'there's no such thing as a free lunch', means that someone or something, somewhere, is paying for everything that exists. The freedom of being able to leave town at a moment's notice and stay away as long as you like is paid for in many subtle and not so subtle ways, by you and by others. For example, you are dependent upon the price of commercial foods staying affordable and the products being safe and healthy to consume. Historically, neither of these things has been a given, and they are both debatable even now.

Avoiding relationships of obligation, such as marriage, family, and domestic animals, is certainly freeing. But it is also shallow. Sally has a full social life, but I don't envy her freedom. Yesterday a hen went missing and I sent Bonnie out with a Go Find Her. She ran out and then stood for a long time, so long I wondered if she was blowing me off. But no. She was listening. She heard something I couldn't, and ran toward the sound, paused, and listened again. It took her some minutes of searching, but eventually I saw the hen, picking her way out of the brush, and then Bonnie, patiently working her toward the gate.

Today I am looking forward to drenching a goat with a medicine I've never used, that has no instructions for goats on it, so I have to extrapolate from calves and chickens. Oh, and I've never drenched a goat. I have to move fence today too. Not my favorite thing. But I also will be piecing a quilt with my daughter, one she can take to college with her, a warm bit of home when she is far away.

Although there are many paths to connectedness, there aren't any cheap ones. The paths are often grueling, and boring. They are always limiting, and you will experience sacrifice, worry, and woe. I don't blame Sally for choosing differently than I have. But for all the pleasure that she has in her freedom, because I know her well I also know that there is also an undertext of fear there, a kind of claustrophobia. She isn't a city girl who doesn't have a clue what it is like to live my kind of life. She knows what she is getting out of, work-wise. What she doesn't know is that the joy doesn't reside in the "good parts", like adorable baby kids, clever dogs, a lovely quilt. It's in the whole pattern of life, the pattern that is only experienced when it is embraced in its entirety. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to do so.

next week: fire

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