After about 10 years of
mostly responsible adulting, I can only begin to describe how good it has been this
summer to check back in with Birch Creek Ranch.
The Ranch has no creed,
but its philosophy is essentially summed up in this poem, written by Lowell
Bennion in 1962:
“Learn to like what
doesn't cost much.
Learn to like reading,
conversation, music.
Learn to like plain food,
plain service, plain cooking.
Learn to like fields,
trees, brooks, hiking, rowing, climbing hills.
Learn to like people, even
though some of them may be different, different from you.
Learn to like to work and
enjoy the satisfaction doing your job as well as it can be done.
Learn to like the song of
birds, the companionship of dogs.
Learn to like gardening, going
around the house fixing things.
Learn to like the sunrise
and sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, and the gentle fall of
snow on a winter day.
Learn to keep your wants
simple and refuse to be controlled by the likes and dislikes of others.”
Simplicity and
contemplation; hard work and creativity; personal growth and community
awareness; resourcefulness and independent thought; and an appreciation for
life, nature, and difference. This is the basis on which Dr. Bennion ran his
summer ranch in Tenon Valley, Idaho for over 40 years. And it has continued as
a kind of beatific ethos for Birch Creek for the past 15 years. That is, from
the days when it was a few yurts, a couple porta-potties, an outdoor kitchen
with a French drain, and an old, heavy, hot-as-hell canvas army tent in the
cheat grass of Pigeon Hollow, to now, running things out of a straw-bale lodge,
properly wired and plumbed, a fine “chapel in the junipers,” and even reliable
(and mostly air-conditioned!) vehicles.
Here’s some of that that
looked like this summer.
A descent into Dark Canyon starts with a quick sermon on cryptobiotic
crust. (“Like desert coral reefs,” one of the boys says. OK, looks like we get
it; let’s go!) Over the next few hours we will see what rubbish snacks some of
them chose to buy at the gas station by the colors and consistency of their
barf in the sand: Corn Nuts, Frito Lay, neon red Slurpee, and so on. Embodied
learning.
Sunrise on the
dirtmonsters.
On the loooong walk back
up the “Devil’s Stairway,” I admire and comment on one boy’s daypack, how it’s
probably older than he is. He explains that it is the pack his father took when
he came to his home country to adopt him. And that his father had now lent it
to him for the summer. We talk and he goes on to tell me about how he ended up
losing some of his best friends on the last day of school before heading off
into the summer. Some misunderstanding and teen drama at Lagoon Day. Middle
school is hard, but life tends to only get better from there; we talk for a
while about that.
Some of the boys talk
about all the world travels their wealthy families have taken them on. Others from
more modest circumstances have never really left their home state. One of the
other boys has two seemingly permanent boogers oozing from both of his nostrils
day after day of the trip, like a sort of Garbage Pail Kid. His mouth breathing
is loud and labored the whole way up the climb. But he sets his own steady if
slow pace and makes it all the way.
When people sometimes ask
whether we’re working with “at risk youth,” the response is usually something
like: “Are there any teenagers in 21st century America who aren’t at
risk for so much?”
Nebo from Birch Creek.
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