Countryside Walk

This past weekend I was lucky enough to get out of the city for the day and spend a few hours deep in the country in the town of Freeport, PA, which is north of the city of Pittsburgh near Fox Chapel. I was with a friend visiting his grandparents who live on a remote farm. Their driveway was about a half mile long, snaking through tree and deer infested woods. They own a farm, which has countless acres of hunting land as well as room to grow an amazingly diverse garden. When we arrived I knew this was the perfect place for my first walk, as it wasn’t snowing and the snow was lying on the ground. Though it was quite cold, it did warm up as the day went on and as we walked around the grounds. In true western Pennsylvania fashion, there were many rolling hills and lots of trees. The snow was actually quite deep, probably 6-8 inches. As I walked around taking in the beauty, serenity and quietness of nature I felt so content! I had anticipated feeling lonely and secluded being so removed from the rest of the world (I left my cell phone at the house). Once we got far enough away where we couldn’t see any houses I wished I could somehow stay there for hours (though, warmth would have made it more comfortable). But it was unbelievable that being so far removed and so disconnected could feel so great. I can’t help but think that Thoreau must have felt similar feelings. I cannot imagine it being easy to remove yourself from the world, but once he got there he had to feel at ease.

Trudging through the snow was not my favorite thing, but exploring the grounds of an old farm was amazing. After walking away from the house for a little bit, we started to pass several old buildings that were no longer in use. My friend told me these used to be chicken coops and homes for the pigs they raised on the farm. Looking at the buildings I could just imagine these buildings being in use at the same time that Thoreau was at Walden and trying to picture the scene; probably a similar one, with railroads being built to transport goods through the country and people leaving home to become educated instead of living on the farm their entire life. Then it took me on another thought process and made me wonder what life would have been like for me back then on this farm.

As a young woman, I would have been expected to help the family with the farm, then when I had a family of my own to take care of the people, animals and land around me. This is exactly what Thoreau talked about in the opening part of the book when he was saying basically that all farmers do is work their whole life and don’t actually live life. But it brought me to the thought that, these people, who were never fortunate enough to receive the level of education he was able to, were living life to the fullest extent that they were aware.

In the back of my mind, this is what I want to believe Thoreau was trying to pull out of us – to live the fullest life that we are aware of. Whether this is the case or not, it’s certainly an interesting thought that I was able to come up with thanks to the snowy countryside of western Pennsylvania.