I spent some time recently reading “Charlotte’s Web” to my youngest granddaughter.
The classic story of Wilbur, a runt pig, loved and nurtured by a little girl named Fern, and Charlotte, a very smart spider who lives in the barn, never fails to delight.
It would have been easy to just to buy Alexia the DVD.
As a person who has loved to read for more than six decades, however, I know there is something magical about reading a book to a child who has never heard it before, nor seen the movie. Because that child can create her own movie of the mind envisioning all the characters from the farm hands to Charlotte, the artful spinner of webs.
Wilbur and Charlotte’s story is set in simpler times, when many children grew up knowing a large garden out back and animals in the barnyard meant their family would have food on the dinner table and a little extra spending money for other essentials.
My grandchildren, raised in suburbia, are assaulted by a media intent on selling them fast food and preformed, prepackaged substances that vaguely resemble the original vegetable, grain or fruit from which they were derived.
Their mother decided they needed to understand how and where healthy food is produced. So last year, from late spring into fall, they spent one afternoon a week with farmer Erick Haakenson at Jubilee Farm in Carnation, picking berries and beans, selecting greens and exploring the taste of truly farm-fresh, organically grown foods.
Their mother bought a co-op share of the farm’s production. With that share came a weekly visit, a selection of produce on display in the barn as well as vegetables and berries ready to be picked in the adjoining fields. And, just for moms, rows of fresh flowers destined to brighten a kitchen or dining room table.
Turnips, beets, squash, kohlrabi, parsnips and a variety of leafy greens were among the many new vegetables they experienced. Zucchinis, peas, berries, pumpkins, cucumbers, apples, corn and green beans were among the old friends they met on the farm.
Farmer Erick also had a barn with an adjacent pigpen in which a large sow and her brood got their daily exercise rolling in the dirt or mud depending on the weather. Alexia and her twin brother, Jason, loved watching the pigs.
There were a couple of bossy geese that roamed free and liked to flap their wings and chase children who invaded their personal space. Their cousins, the ducks, were a bit nicer.
Across the road, elegant Arabian mares roamed the pasture, colts at their sides.
Along with produce, the kids tackled interactive projects. One afternoon, they built a scarecrow to keep deer out of the strawberry fields. They had tractor rides. They went with Farmer Erick to feed the cows and listened as he explained that, like children, healthy animals required good nutrition.
Back home, they helped as produce was sorted, washed and prepared for dinner. They watched me make fresh applesauce from Farmer Erick’s apples. The apples were not shiny and red, like the ones from the store, but the applesauce proved beauty really is skin deep. They love warm applesauce, right out of the pot.
During the long winter months, some of the produce that was frozen or canned made its way back to their dinner table.
Since February, Farmer Erick’s customers have been able to participate in a small weekly delivery of winter produce.
Among the fresh vegetables they brought home were collard greens, a new culinary adventure for everyone in the family. A year ago, a heaping platter of leafy greens, gently stirred and steamed, would have been received by howls of displeasure.
The scenario would have been something like this: Adamson, 8, would declare he was not eating that yucky stuff, and the twins, 5, would have followed the party line. Not a pleasant occasion.
However, the collard greens at a recent family dinner were from Farmer Erick. They were received and eaten without a fuss.
This was as much a miracle as the artful webs Charlotte spins in the classic children’s book.
And as we turned those pages, Alexia could close her eyes and see a farm like the one that was home to Charlotte and Wilbur because she had already experienced life on a real farm and understood the value of what comes to our family from those farms.
In “Charlotte’s Web,” the heroes are primarily animals. The farmer, struggling to keep his farm operating and care for his family, has to make some harsh choices, not always popular with the animals or his daughter, Fern.
My granddaughter’s farm hero, however, will always be Farmer Erick, a man of the soil who is also a patient and kind teacher.
Like the themes of classic books, memories of our childhood and the lessons we learned travel with us for the rest of our lives.
“And so, Alexia,” I said as we closed the book, “how would you like to hear the story of LaVerne and Shirley, the piglets like Wilbur we raised when their mother couldn’t feed them? They were just a day old when we rescued them. They lived in a big box in the kitchen and we fed them baby formula and rice cereal.”
“Silly Gramma,” she replied. “Pigs don’t live in the house. I know where pigs live. I saw them at Farmer Erick’s. They live in the barn and play outside in the mud.”
I decided to save that story from her father’s childhood for another day.
Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.
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