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| Mama Chloe |
As a child, I always carried my
little blanket with me. It had satin binding around the edges. I rubbed the satin so much that it finally fell off of my blanket. For comfort, I would rub the edge of the blanket between my fingers. The silky soft feel of the binding brought countless hours of calm to my life. When my blanket was not within reach, I would satisfy my tactile cravings in other ways. Kitty fur, dog hair, and even the inside of a horse’s ear, all made for wonderful calming experiences. Though my blanket has been packed away now for years, my fingers still crave the calmness that the silk binding used to bring.
I have come to acknowledge this need for tactile experiences in my life. Without knowing it, I have filled my adult life with such experiences. I did not make my children their own play dough because it was economical, but because of the soothing, and amazing feeling of digging your hands into warm, newly made play dough. I went through a phase of baking my own bread, just so I could knead the dough between my hands and feel its silky softness. My children were always
allowed to go barefoot, inside and out, because that’s what I did when I was little, and I could not imagine depriving their feet of all the wonderful things in the world to feel. I could go on, and list countless other things in my life that all stem from this desire to touch and experience life through feeling.
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| Chloe’s FLUFFY twin ewe lambs-Hazel and Holly |
Almost everything I do on our farm seems to involve feeding my addiction. Gardening is not just about putting food on the table, but about getting my hands into the dirt, and then holding all those incredible vegetables in my hands. Knitting is not just about creating a garment to wear, but also about the hours of holding the yarn between my fingers and running my hands over the garment every time I wear it. Weaving is not just about the technical challenge of the loom, but about each strand of fiber that passes between my hands as I warp and weave. And shepherding is not just about throwing some hay at some livestock, who help keep the grass trim and neat, and the pasture bucolic. Shepherding is about all those fluffy sheep, and all that wool, all mine, to bury my hands into anytime I want to-and to bend over and wrap my arms around all their fluffiness, and give them a hug! Sometimes I just want to scream out, just like Agnes in the movie Despicable Me, “It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die!”
So when you come for a farmstay at VT Grand View Farm, let me introduce you to the many tactile experiences of farming and rural living!!
Jennifer King
Well, if you gotta go you might as well die from “fluff” overload 😉