It's hard to know where to start when I sit down to write. A few months ago, a dear reader observed that there seemed to be a lot of bad things happening on the farm this year. So I backed off the wiritng. If you don't have anything nice to say, then you shouldn't say anything at all, right. Well, when you have seven out of eight goats die on you and a five week dry period, you spend your time trying to hold it together and then picking up the pieces. I'm not saying farm life is all hard work and doom and gloom, but sometimes, what you think of as news is not so good. I can say that I know what caused the goat die off. I also have a new perspective on irrigation. I've gotten to watch my daughter grow taller and stay pink. I seen my son get used to having jobs to do and learning how to trim horse feet with my husband. All those are great and good things, but when I sit down to write, I remember the individual goats, the struggle to get time to pull fence, the property line "discussion" the adjoining property owners keep bringing up and so on.
The truth is farming is a quite a bit of hard times punctuated by brilliant flashes of great moments. It IS work. It IS hard and it can be disappointing. But I love it. I would work whether it was at this or something else. And I love this. The quiet moments of picking or weeding. The intense joy of watching a small animal play. and so on. It can sound quite cliched and maybe it is. But perhaps that's because so many people have had a chance to experience this life either through their relatives, TV, books or whatever.
So stick with me. It may be hard but anything worth doing has a price. Besides, the stories may be interesting. I think this farm is absolutely necessary. More small farms are needed. We must concentrate on growing local food for our own survival. Tomatoes, anyone? How about spinach?
6 comments:
Keep on writing about the real life on the farm. Our year of experimenting with a home garden has proven you point that it is hard work, that things to go very wrong, and that it is extremely rewarding in spite of all the setbacks. After several garden disasters, we're doing what any gardener does -- we're expanding for next year!
Chuck: Thank you so much. You are right, of course. Someone said that farmers are optimists and I say we have to be otherwise we would be working somewhere else. Have a great summer!
Nice to know I'm not the only nut out there still slogging away. Keep farming and writing. It'll still be hard, but you can always be sure there is someone out there having a worse time.
Cheers,
Alan
Alan: Thank you. Your comment made me laugh. I hope for most of us that it doesn't have to be that hard. Hope you folks are having a good year.
I agree... keep writing about EVERYTHING, good and bad... there are lessons in all of it. I'm quite far away (Maine) but I love reading your posts, all of them.
Fiddler: Will do. I happen to love to write, also. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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