Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
In these lines, I find Wordsworth describing the rural England I imagined in my youth when I was growing up on a dairy farm in southwestern Ontario: wild hedge rows, green pastures, cottages with smoke rising from their chimneys.
When I was young, like maybe twelve or thirteen, I would try to imagine what England looked like. More specifically, the rural England of Jane Eyre and Wurthering Heights -- two books that I read during a summer library club. Two books I had no real understanding of what was going on and was shocked by their content when I reread them in university. But there was something about the description of the landscape in the books that seemed so distant to my own existence. I lived on a modern dairy farm and would often walk the property and sometimes, with my mind's eye, I would take the slight slope of the land and imagine it was a vast pasture somewhere in England. England seemed much more romantic.
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
In these lines, I find Wordsworth describing the rural England I imagined in my youth when I was growing up on a dairy farm in southwestern Ontario: wild hedge rows, green pastures, cottages with smoke rising from their chimneys.
When I was young, like maybe twelve or thirteen, I would try to imagine what England looked like. More specifically, the rural England of Jane Eyre and Wurthering Heights -- two books that I read during a summer library club. Two books I had no real understanding of what was going on and was shocked by their content when I reread them in university. But there was something about the description of the landscape in the books that seemed so distant to my own existence. I lived on a modern dairy farm and would often walk the property and sometimes, with my mind's eye, I would take the slight slope of the land and imagine it was a vast pasture somewhere in England. England seemed much more romantic.
The funny thing is is I am not really that British by extraction. On one side, I am third generation Dutch-Canadian and on the other Irish from mid 19th century. So where did this fascination with all things English come from? Was it the news reports of Princess Diana's ever changing wardrobe? Or the Royal Wedding book of Prince Andrew and Princess Sarah that I was given in 1986? Or the coins with the Queen's head on them?
I do remember dreaming that Queen of England would come to visit our farm. I used this as motivation when washing down the parlor after milking. A parlor after milking is covered in cow excrement. Completely covered. I, in my rubber boots and coveralls, would perfect the technique of taking a high powered hose and washing down the cow crap as effectively and efficiently as possible. I took great pride in my technique. The secret? I used to imagine that I was spraying a path through the cow crap for the Queen so that should could inspect our facilities and that my spraying had to meet the "white glove" expectations that a Queen would require. I became very good at washing the parlor.
I was twenty when I first went to England and compared the real landscape with my imaginings of a preteen. I had been studying English Literature in the Netherlands on third year exchange. I had been in Europe just shy of a month when Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris. Throughout the year, during breaks and long weekends, I would jaunt all over Europe -- visiting the People's Princess memorial in Paris and eventually places throughout the United Kingdom. It was in the month before I returned home that I got to see many of the places I had read about: the moors of Yorkshire, the Lake District, parts of Wales, Brighton and of course, London.
I do remember dreaming that Queen of England would come to visit our farm. I used this as motivation when washing down the parlor after milking. A parlor after milking is covered in cow excrement. Completely covered. I, in my rubber boots and coveralls, would perfect the technique of taking a high powered hose and washing down the cow crap as effectively and efficiently as possible. I took great pride in my technique. The secret? I used to imagine that I was spraying a path through the cow crap for the Queen so that should could inspect our facilities and that my spraying had to meet the "white glove" expectations that a Queen would require. I became very good at washing the parlor.
I was twenty when I first went to England and compared the real landscape with my imaginings of a preteen. I had been studying English Literature in the Netherlands on third year exchange. I had been in Europe just shy of a month when Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris. Throughout the year, during breaks and long weekends, I would jaunt all over Europe -- visiting the People's Princess memorial in Paris and eventually places throughout the United Kingdom. It was in the month before I returned home that I got to see many of the places I had read about: the moors of Yorkshire, the Lake District, parts of Wales, Brighton and of course, London.
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