ReluctantFarmChick.com

Today will be a short post – I promise.  Because pictures have been a bit sparse all but absent, I thought you’d enjoy a view of what makes my farm living so worthwhile.  Our home has a wall of windows that face north-ish.  In the summer time there are huge trees that impede some of our view, but I love having them there because it also impedes others’ views of us.  They’re not so close that the house is dark by any stretch of the imagination.  Our house is NEVER dark (except in the dead of night without much of a moon) In the fall, the colors are STUNNING – I can’t wait to share the views with you. 

We’ve been having some significant thunderstorms for the past few days.  Sitting in my living room is like having a front seat in an Imax theatre.  It’s just awesome.  I feel like I’m outside, but with all the comforts of not being there (air conditioning, no bugs, and no humidity).  After the thunderstorm, the mist makes the field look almost surreal.  Photography is not my strong point, and no camera can compensate for my crazy shaking hands, but you get the idea.  This is taken from one of the kitchen windows.

Here is a picture of the barns.   The furthest green-roof barn is full of hay (round bales).  It was a lot smaller (shorter) last year this time, and it mostly blew over in a huge storm.  We had the frame rebuilt, then Prince Farming and I put the sides on (April ‘08).  The middle/older barn was on the property when we moved here.  It has some hay in it, and 4 horse stalls (currently empty or filled with square bales for the relatives’ horses.  It is also home to our newest family members. . . chickens.  The closest barn will be a feed barn when it is completed.  Actually, it has a green roof on it already - thought this picture was more current.  Don’t worry - you’ll definitely see it in the fall, if not before.

This one is from the top of the mountain behind our house.  We were up there fixing the fence about a month ago, and this is a shot my daughter captured.  She took “Digital Photography” at summer camp this year, so she’s taking over my camera.  Which is fine.  She has a great eye for cool things, and is learning to frame them well.

 For those who know me, I don’t have to explain why I use “reluctant” in my blog name.  Or maybe I do.    Does it mean I’m reluctant to live on a farm?  Or that I don’t enjoy my environment?  Or . . . ?  Where does this reluctance come from? 

 Actually, if you would have told me 10 years ago that I’d be living on a farm and doing farm chores, I would have snickered a whimpy little “yeah, right!”  But here I am, on a farm, and when the need arises, I do farm chores.  Yeah!  Right!  It’s me.  When I think about it beyond the “I should be painting my toe-nails and eating bon-bons” scenario, I believe my reluctance isn’t so much what you all might think it is.  Let me work it through on this live journal page.

Prince Farming works at the office most of the week.  His day off is Thursday (which isn’t “off” at all – it just means he works very hard at a different place on Thursday) and weekends.  He also gets home at varying times on other days, which allows him to work on the farm on most afternoons – especially in the summer time when the office isn’t so busy and the days are longer.   He is a work-a-holic and loves to get things done.  He is very project oriented, and he ALWAYS finishes the projects he starts.  That just amazes me, even after all these years.  I admire it in him.  That might also be part of my reluctance.  The farm is a project. . . and do farms ever “get done”?  Nope.  Always a fence to mend; barn to repair; hay to mow, rake, bale, and haul;  fields to clear; rocks to pick; cows to work; equipment to fix; etc. etc. etc.  

I like to mentally prepare for what I’m going to do.  And the farm doesn’t always allow one to plan or schedule work.  If the cows are getting out, they need to be herded back and the fence needs to be mended NOW, not when I have an open time-slot next week.  If I’m in the middle of a school project or have a scheduled work-bee, for example, but hay is ready NOW and it’s going to rain the next three days . . .  you get the picture.  So farming kind of ties one to the farm.  Maybe that’s my reluctance.  I’ve never lived anywhere for longer than 5 years – EVER .  (Well, except till now).  I love diversity.  It might be a character flaw, but after I’ve lived in a place for a while, it’s easy to just move away, because it’s like a fresh start.  A clean page.  I miss friends from places past, but then I have a great collection of kindred-spirits all over, and an excuse and destination to travel.  How lucky can a girl be?  And I love to travel.  But the more you do on a farm, the less you can get away.

Then comes the part about not failing.  If I do something, I don’t want it to be a disappointment to someone else.  So if I’m bush-hogging and an unsuspecting rock jumps out of the ground and kills the blade. . .I feel like I create more work than I save / do (very clumsy sentence).  Or if I’m mowing hay and snag the fence row, there’s wire to be run again.  I know that’s the cost of farming, and it happens to everyone.  I just take it personally.  And the learning curve for me on a farm is huge.  This is my first experience – while Prince Farming has been doing everything I do since he was 10 or 11 years old.  So he does it completely effortlessly.  I learn something one year (like mowing hay with that crazy off-to-the-side mowing arm thingy) and the next year (or at the end of the summer) I have to learn it again – (how do you turn on the PTO?  How to you raise the mower?  {No – DON’T raise it this year, it gets stuck and requires all sorts of repair if you do.  I’ll fix that this winter}  How fast should I go and in what gear? Where the heck are those holes that were so obvious 3 weeks ago, but now could kill the tractor and the mower (and me) if not avoided? etc. etc. )  And maybe it’s my age – or this stuff just doesn’t come naturally to me – I can’t even remember all the things I should ask!

Because of my farming inexperience, my jobs are often the most mundane.   I end up doing what I feel is “not much” (lots of standing around) because Prince Farming needs me to hold something in place, or hand him a tool, or go get something from the shed.  I know that my help is invaluable.  I just feel like in between times there are sixty loads of laundry I could be doing, or washing windows (what a joke – but it goes through my mind in times like these) or stamping, or reading, or painting my nails and eating bon-bons, or . . . anything but this!!   Aunt Ruth, who lives with her farmer husband Uncle Robert, was smiling at me when I told her about the stuff I sometimes do on the farm.  I asked her if she ever had to do that stuff on their farm.  Her response was “I like helping him about as much as he likes me to help him.”  So funny.  They have an agreement.  You do your farm thing, and I’ll be here to watch.  Not my Prince Farming, though.  He loves me to be right there, even if I’m doing nothing at all for most of it.

So the reluctance doesn’t mean I don’t love the farm.  I just wasn’t anticipating this being my life.  There is a lot that I love about being here.  And there is a certain amount of satisfaction when local farmers (or not) drive past and watch with admiration as they see me hauling the rocks, or pulling the hay from the (formerly) open drive-shaft on the cub cadet.   And then there’s the opportunity for character development and personal growth.  I’ll share that as I’m aware of it.  For right now - here I am.  ReluctantFarmChik.  Could have been InexperiencedAndWannaPlanTravelFarmChik.  But that would sound like I’m an idiot itinerant farmer. . . not quite my message.