Fertility Lessons

Lunchtime conversation today centered around my older daughter's most recent plan to run away. Her sister, trying to dissuade her from abandoning the rest of us, kept bringing up the things that she would miss (books, a bed, a pillow, salt, lunch), but the would-be runaway was undeterred. She simply insisted that she would either find room for these important items in her backpack, or--when that would not be feasible--make them herself out of sticks, clay and other resources she would find aplenty in her new abode. Things got a little dicey, though, when she began selecting the livestock she would take on her journey to this new home "far from parents and adults." She started with her own goat, Carolina, and then went on to include her chicken, Autumn. When she added that she would bring along our rooster, too, her sister finally put her foot down. "No!" she exclaimed with alarm, "You can't take Captain Haddock! Then there wouldn't be anybody to pollinate the hens!"

Spring Mating in the Pond

My first thought was, "Oh, dear: I guess we have some reproduction lessons ahead of us." But then I realized that she's got the basic idea just right: it takes contact between the sexes to "seed" little ones. Life on the farm is filled with lessons on reproduction and fertility: in the garden, in the barn, in the pasture, and in the woods. I am grateful that my girls are learning about these issues in such places, and not from TV stars or popular musicians. And if they occasionally mix things up a bit, well--that's what we eternally-irritating adult-parents are here for. I'll make a note to plan a lesson for my girls once the escapee is back at home (somehow I've got a hunch that will be by suppertime).