Page 18 - C.A.L.L. #40 - Winter 2015
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and cats and dogs. A pair of oxen, the animals. (“They were like our
Star and Bright, took over the family,” Johannes said. “But they did
plowing duties, with a handmade plow eat all the flowers.”)
the local auto mechanic would fix
when the oxen grew balky and But there was menace, too. This
mangled its metal parts. rural township was not
overwhelmingly welcoming to two
Their older neighbors were young gay men and their dreams to
impressed by their work ethic and populate a fledgling farm. They
shared their folklore and practices. always knew when the bars closed.
“These Dutch couples in their 80s They would hear engines revving, and
had lived the lifestyle we were the shouts would begin: “We’re going
living,” Johannes said. “They didn’t to kill you.” “Go home.” Johannes
care who we were, they just saw how took to sleeping in his truck, hoping
to chase the perpetrators and
write down their license-plate
numbers. One night, a cow was
shot.
Eventually, self-sufficiency and
exhaustion trumped the Colonial
lifestyle. They put in a satellite
phone, dug a well. Harvesting by
hand gave way at first to Star
and Bright’s efforts, and then
Johannes Zinzendorf feeding cattle in their early they sold the team to buy a
days on the farm. tractor. They bought a
generator and power tools,
hard we worked. They taught us how including a jigsaw. “That was fun —
to broadcast seed, how to tie the we put gingerbread trim on
corn shocks to dry the corn.” And everything,” Johannes said.
how to sharpen their scythes on the
stone walls that Zephram had built. They tried wind power, then solar.
“You might get 40 minutes a day, and
There were moments of incredible then it would crash,” he said.
joy. The day they completed the “Lightning storms would hit and blow
reconstruction of what they called up the transformer.” Four years ago,
the community house, an 18th- they hooked up to the power grid.
century log cabin with a marvelous
peaked roof that they rescued from In the wake of the unrealized
an industrial park and that took 10 brotherhood, they tried artists’
years to remake. Eating outside with retreats, residencies and other
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