Here's A Place You Can Go To Enjoy The Tonics Of Kansas Rural Life

By Cindy Hoedel, Kansas Reflector

July 1, 2021

The Kansas Reflector welcomes opinion pieces from writers who share our goal of widening the conversation about how public policies affect the day-to-day lives of people throughout our state. Cindy Hoedel is a freelance journalist and on the board of directors of Matfield Green Works.

In this strange, crawling-out-of-our-shells, post-lockdown summer, the evening tree frog serenades sound more melodic. The rising moon looks pinker, the waist-high pasture grass smells sweeter, and nobody can remember a better year for mulberries. Something has shifted. But not in the natural world, in us.

The pandemic has shaken our trust in our ability to conquer old-fashioned problems like plagues and food shortages through technology. We trusted science. Science let us down. Or maybe we equated science with infallibility and, in that way, we let ourselves down.

In 2000, Wendell Berry tried to warn us: “To trust ‘progress’ or our putative ‘genius’ to solve all the problems that we cause is worse than bad science, it is bad religion.”

Shaken by the failure of human-engineered systems that were not designed for our wellbeing, we now seek refuge in the soft embrace of Mother Nature. Our appreciation of her handiwork is heightened.

Another shift has occurred — in the way the rural lifestyle is popularly perceived. The choice to live close to the land now looks less like a quaint rejection of modernity and more like a common-sense way to survive the next inevitable crisis.

When COVID-19 hit, country folk went from being mocked to envied: As city friends were donning homemade hazmat get-ups to venture into stores to hoard groceries and toilet paper, most of my neighbors already had fully stocked pantries and deep freezers. When the nearest grocery store is 30 miles away, you always buy in bulk.

When seed catalogs were unable to fulfill orders in March, we were already planting. We have always grown food, and we buy seeds in winter to start under grow lights and on kitchen windowsills.

But “the village effect” (as described in a 2014 book of that name by Canadian psychologist Susan Pinker) goes deeper than semi-self-sufficiency. At right around 50 people and somewhere north of 100 when you count the whole township, Matfield Green, my home for the past eight years, is a true village, and that counts for more than provisions. A village has got your back when the global economy leaves you hanging.

Thanks to a 35-year history of free spirits self-transplanting here — many drawn by William Least Heat-Moon’s descriptions of a creek-lined hollow surrounded by remote rangeland in “PrairyErth,” and by Mac Arthur “genius award” recipient Wes Jackson, who, for a time, ran a satellite presence of the Salina-based Land Institute here — Matfield Green has always been a colorful mix of what locals call “born-heres” and “come-heres.”

The born-heres tend to be conservative and the come-heres tend to be liberal, with exceptions. For the better part of 2020, the north entrance of town was decorated by flags: “Trump” to the east, “Biden” to the west. They fluttered in peaceful coexistence, neither was stolen or defaced, and supporters of both (and neither) continued consuming beer together around pickup beds and in folding aluminum lawn chairs after work. As one born-here likes to say, “We’re too small for anybody to not get along. We don’t have that luxury.”

When communication is face-to-face and frequent, it’s harder to maintain stereotypes. In person, if not on Facebook, our political differences are eclipsed by our affection for each other and for the land.

“When people who live in cities visit me, they always say, ‘You don’t appreciate how beautiful it is here,’ ” a local once told me. “I tell them, ‘The hell I don’t!’ ”

My friend Floyd Beck describes our commonalities differently: “Everybody here is friendly, but they’re all half a bubble off plumb.” He includes himself in that description. Floyd, a retired teacher and railroad aficionado, lives in Wichita, but he is in Matfield several days a week, working on projects on several lots he owns in the ribbon of land between the Scenic Byway (KS-177) and the railroad trestle that forms the town’s western edge.

From 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, July 31, Floyd is hosting a workshop on trainspotting at his Studio 108, which boasts shade trees and a large patio for viewing the trains that roll through town — 60 per day, on average.

The workshop is one of 17 hangouts in July and August hosted by Matfield Green Works, our local arts and culture nonprofit. We have no underwriters for the programming but decided to go for it on a shoestring budget anyway.

We tapped neighbors and friends to present on topics ranging from sourdough to shamanic astrology to drumming to songwriting to making dyes and inks from prairie plants. There are nature hikes, a photography book talk, a walking tour of local food gardens, a guided tour of our PrairyArt Sculpture Path by its creator, talks by small family ranchers who are raising pastured meat and chemical-free vegetables, and a music jam.

To preserve an intimate vibe, we’re capping events at 12-20, and some are already sold out. Tickets cost $20 and include either a box lunch from Keller Feed and Wine in Cottonwood Falls or cold beer, wine and nonalcoholic beverages. For a schedule, detailed descriptions and tickets, go to matfieldgreen.org.

Our motivation is partly self-serving: We like getting together and making our own fun. But there’s also something like survivor’s guilt at play. We have not suffered the same isolation and disruption city-dwelling friends and family have endured during the pandemic. We know we are lucky to have been sheltering in spectacular scenery and the good company of each other, and we want to share those tonics with whoever needs them.

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