Adventure awaits

One of the audiobooks I’ve listened to while doing chores over the holidays is “Typee” by Herman Melville. If that author’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he also wrote the book most of you probably had to read in high school: “Moby Dick.” I thought it was funny that, at the beginning of the book, he posits that the last place for a man to find adventure is as a sailor upon the seas.

The book was published in 1846. Two years later, the California gold rush was kicked off by James Marshall finding gold near Coloma, California. I obviously wasn’t there, but that period of people rushing to the west coast in search of gold sounds an awful lot like a terrestrial adventure to me. I think Melville may have called out the end of adventure a bit early.

Not everyone loves an adventure. Some people are happy to have the consistency of the same things predictably occurring every day without feeling bored or in any way restless. For some, it seems their mission in life is to prevent anything out of the ordinary from occurring, and they expend great effort on that ultimately futile mission. The stereotypical old guy shouting at “those darn kids” to stay off his manicured lawn comes to mind.

Other people can’t stay in the same place for more than a week before they feel the need to go somewhere, do something new, meet new people or do anything but the same thing as yesterday. I personally fall more in the latter than the former group of people. That’s part of the reason I love farming. Every day is an adventure. You never know what you’ll wake up to. Even if you do your best to avoid adventure, it will usually come find you. No amount of preparation and maintenance prevents a tornado from ripping the roof off your shed or a flood from running down the alley of the barn conveniently taking the manure out but leaving just as much mud and debris behind.

Maybe natural disasters aren’t exactly a good kind of adventure, but I’d argue they sure are one. The dictionary defines adventure as: an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity. A missing shed roof is certainly unusual, and having personally watched winds throw large objects from the semi safety of our milking parlor a time or two, I can say it’s exciting. Severe weather also checks the box of hazardous experiences as well.

Perhaps all Midwesterners are just really into adventure, and that’s why instead of doing as the meteorologists tell us — which is to hide in the basement — a heck of a lot of people watch storms come in from their porch or garage and head to the basement only when the hazards seem to exceed the excitement.

If you seek adventure that isn’t weather-related but lack the desire to set sail on a whaling ship, then ditch to hang out with a tribe of cannibals on a tropical island as Mr. Melville possibly did, there are still adventures to be had closer to home. Any day can be an adventure, even a run to the implement dealer for parts. Take a way to get there you’ve never gone before and you’ll often find things you never knew were there. I found a cold war era missile site not far from our farm I’d never known about before by taking a detour on the way to the Case dealer. I think I saw it was for sale a while ago, if you’ve ever wanted to own your own missile silo.

Stopping in at a bar or restaurant you’ve never been to can be an adventure. I had to kill some time waiting for a haircut and met a guy that worked on helicopters in Vietnam and then trucked things all around the states. I learned all sorts of interesting new things because of grabbing a drink while waiting around Lakeville. You can even just go for a walk on your own farm, and it can turn into an adventure.

Until next time, keep living the dream and, if you are so inclined, seek out a bit of adventure. Thunderstorms are still a ways off, so you may have to go looking but probably not far. If you do decide the only place for adventure is upon the seas, I’d love to hear about it when you get back. Remember to mind your manners if you happen to end up being held prisoner on an island somewhere.

Tim Zweber farms with his wife, Emily, their three children and his parents, Jon and Lisa, near Elko, Minnesota.