Bricks in a field
Don Fran is building a house for his family this summer. In the
shack where they live now, it is hard to tell where the outside
ends and the inside begins. The new house will have indoor plumbing,
cement floors, and real room partitions instead of a sheet on a
string.
“I have to finish it this summer or my wife will go on strike
and my daughter will stop speaking to me”. He has postponed
this long enough. Every single cent he has earned in the last 12
years has been ploughed back into the land. There was just always
another acre that could be bought, or a new bull, or more calves.
Now, it is a difficult habit to break. He builds as he runs his
farm; he has baked every adobe brick himself rather than use money
to buy them.
The new house is sited with a view of his corral, the centrepiece
of his successful farm. Don Fran has done well and is proud of his
cattle, his planning, his modern techniques. Some of his neighbours
have begun calling him “boss”, that’s how often
he hires them to help him out in the fields.
He believes in community and puts in time on the board of the farmers’
association. “It doesn’t do to grow too much yourself
if you don’t help the rest of the community grow.” |
