Regular readers are at least familiar with my dear friend and colleague, Jack Falvey. I recently shared some plans with him and was not surprised by his response. Since I’m about to share those plans publicly, I’ll start with part of his response.

“We spend our whole lives trying to make it. For better or worse, we are already here.”

Jack Falvey

Ironically, as I prepared to write this, Seth Godin, in his daily blog post, notes that what we’re doing influences where we are. He asks the rhetorical question, “What happens when we are here and now?”

All these thoughts about where we are and what we’re doing are a good introduction to a few thoughts about where I am, where I’m going, and what I’m doing. I think some of you will be surprised.

This is not going to be a typical summer in our household. For one thing, we won’t be here for three weeks. How this all came about could be an interesting tale that might include karma and coincidence for those who believe in that sort of stuff.

Our extended road trip includes some time in Holmes County, Ohio, often referred to as Amish Country. On the return trip, we’ll also visit Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and connect with some Amish friends there.

However, a primary goal of the trip is Scotts, Michigan, which is the home of Tillers International. Here, I’ll spend four days learning to train and drive oxen.

As some know, I’m a huge fan of oxen and ox pulls or draws. I can spot a poorly trained team or a teamster that doesn’t understand them. Tiller’s isn’t training for competition–they have a mission that includes preserving our rural heritage and skills. “We attract many people to our classes that are interested in history, the use of hand tools, nostalgia, and a sense of accomplishment of doing something ‘the old-school way.'”

While I’m going to Michigan, in another sense, I’ll be somewhere else. Maybe even a different time when things were more straightforward and we lived closer to the earth.

I’ve joked that this may qualify as one of the more useless things I’ve done in my life. I have no intention of acquiring a team. But as an educator, I suspect I’ll be conscious of how I’m trained and how I, in turn, train and manage these furry fellows.

Jack’s cryptic writing style is reassuring: “I love the oxen adventure. That is you. Oxen are real. You are in a good place.”

Some of my other thoughts on oxen:

Gee Haw! Meet four-year-old Julia and her two large friends. She had the fine distinction of being the youngest and smallest driver in a special class of oxen pulling…

Thanks, Julia! Seven years ago, Julia had the fine distinction of being the youngest and smallest driver in a special class of oxen pulling I watched. It was both entertaining and impressive.