Out on the farm

When you've had a full week and Life stresses just become too much it's really nice to just go to the farm on a Sunday evening, climb up into the tractor and til up dirt.  The troubles just kind of meltaway. Today's weather was nice and breezy as I was walking up and back through the fields just thinking about nothing I am thankful to be still and there with the beautiful purple grass, because yes the grass is purple right now, Soemtimes working on the farm is the break we need. Yes, it's still work but it's different. It's tangible and it's not exactly rushed. Even when it sounds like I've got it as just another "To Do" list item, it's really not.

I don't know if I'll always view it this way. And I guess if I'm honest I don't view all the work with rose colored glasses. Some work, like cleaning out the chicken coup, I strongly dislike. I agreed to get chickens this year and although I don't regret it I must confess, I HATE birds. All birds. Including chickens. I'm not the chicken woman who's holding and cuddling my chickens. Oh no. I tend to them with the kids and make sure they are well cared for but really, they creep me out! With their beedy little eyes on the sides of their heads so they have to kinda turn them to look at you. And our chickens are so used to us they run right up to you and then just stand there and stare at you. And when their in the coup that makes them level with my cheat! Yuck!

The next addition may be goats. We'll see on that one. I know all the advantages to having them and I've read about what to do to fence them in and I'm certain we can learn to take care of them. However, I HATE goats too!! Their eyes!!! It is like they are the spawns of the devil himself!!! I can't hardly look at them they gross me out so much! I have these aweful day dreams of one of them standing up on their back legs and talking to me. Good grief I just don't know if I can do goats. But they seem like they'd be easier to handle than cattle and I REALLY don't think I'm ready for cows yet.

Farm life is an adventure, that's for sure. Purple grass, chickens, dirt and poop, chicken poop to be exact. We're all a big part of my evening today.

But, I chose this life and tonight, no regrets!

A Truth

I know. I know I'm a slacker blogger. I try people, I do. But life is BUSY. But I'm going to pull the veil back a little bit on farm life today.

 But first, let me be abundantly clear, I do not consider myself a farmer. I feel like my ineptitude towards farming can not possibly put me into the same category as those hard working men and women who truly farm. Maybe one day I will be comfortable enough calling myself a farmer, but not today.

That all being said, farming is hard. I know it's become kinda hipster like with urban farming and the slow food movement, which I stand behind, but to truly do it in a scale larger than your back porch, I'm talking truly make a run at it with a big garden, animals and it all that's a whole different layer of hard. It's like having a child. You think you know. You think you're ready. But you don't know. You're not ready. I don't regret jumping in whole hog, well today I don't regret it. But there have been MANY times in the past 16 months where we have looked at one another and said, "what have we done?!" That is just the times we have been comfortable enough, or desperate enough, to say it out loud. Every time you think you've made a stride forward something breaks, it rains, we have a drought, or an animal tears it up and you realize you've done a lot of work and made little gains. It is frustrating. It is soul crushing. It is not for the weak in body or in mind.

My Dad grew up on a farm and farmed the first half of his adult life. He use to tell me he wasn't any good at farming. I was too young to remember that aspect. But I don't think he's right. My Mom says he WAS good at.  He's told me that you have to be very stubborn and optimistic to keep at it. THAT I believe.  I think, no I KNOW, that in farming if it can break or go wrong it will. That we as man have tried to bend the business of farming to our will and our ways. And guess what, nature doesn't work that way. It is gonna do what it is gonna do. You can work the land, nurture the soul and feed it to make it a healthy living organism and still squash bugs, deers and raccoons will come to feed.

A couple weeks ago I messed up and ran over fencing. Nothing broke but I was good and hung up and Brent, who was incredibly busy with work, didn't get angry just changed into jeans at 8PM and went and fixed my mistake. He wasn't angry or frustrated or anything. I on the other hand was beating myself for, number one, making the mistake and, number two, not being able to fix it myself. For hours I had the internal dialogue of "I can't do this". As I was thanking him for coming to my rescue and not being mad at me he just nodded and said what has kinda been a joke between us but is spoken with truth behind it, "Farming is hard. It's you and me against this farm."