It doesn’t get any better than this!
Bonding (SLB)
I tend to romanticize farming. I like muddy farm boots and the south wind whipping the fresh towels off the clothesline. I love thunderstorms even when heavy rains have bubbled newly-planted onion sets right out of the garden rows. And even when our root cellar flooded so high my jars of pickled beets and green beans bobbed up to the third step. That was the time two cider barrels tipped over, too. Nothing romantic about that to Klaus, for sure, but as we pumped out the cellar water, the sweet smell of last year’s hard cider spread across the grass around us.
No need to cross the road (SLB)
Klaus is the practical one: He says don’t buy a new hoe; we’ll get one at the Amish auction in July. We keep the horses in the stable once in a while just to collect enough manure to spread on our pastures, keeping them lush and well-fed. He would say no one ever grows too many radishes.
He once found a five-foot blacksnake in the chicken coop with an egg in its mouth. It was during one of those months when egg production was already waning. Klaus snatched that snake in his bare hands and squeezed its neck—wherever you find the neck on a snake—until the jaws popped open and the egg popped out. He put the egg in his pocket, carried the snake to the edge of the pond and let it go. Later the screen door slammed against his coat pocket and broke the egg inside.
Cat commentary
We try not to kill the natural predators we encounter on the farm. Snakes are only doing snake things. Raccoons are only doing what’s natural for being a raccoon. Coyotes prey on our chickens because they are coyote food and their coyote pups are yipping to be fed. Owls and hawks swoop down to snag a hen for their food, too. If we can trap or capture them, Klaus walks these unwanted visitors across the highway to deliver them some distance from the farm. Even if the black snake manages to bite him, Klaus will stand at the edge of the highway, blood dripping from his wrist and hands spread wide with head-to-tail snake, waiting for traffic to clear so he can continue across the two lanes to the other side.
We have had to pen up our poultry from time to time to protect them from peril. We figure death by coyote is worse than the safety of a pen. So we cut fresh greens for them and keep kiddie pools full for the ducks to splash and bob in water they love to muddy.
There is a rhythm in farm life, nature and hens who wander back to the coop every night on their own. A blue heron swoops down on the pond’s edge about the same time every morning. The dog runs faster than his nose can keep up as he chases down rabbit smells in the pasture.
Shoe tree
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The goats—sweet as they are, and all named—can find a way to slip into the gardens and nibble off all our tender leek shoots. Bird nests drop out of the trees or get discovered in a forkful of new hay and get added to our collection.
Birds “appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way…What we need is here.” from a poem by Wendell Berry.
I bought this farm in 2004. The first night I stayed on the farm I slept in the barn loft, listening to the farm around me. I could see the stars through the holes in the roof and eagerly embraced the work ahead of me. I married Klaus, five horses, four dogs, two cats and a mess of chickens in 2006.
Like Wendell Berry said, “What we need is here.” (SLB)
Farm life!
So You Think You Want To Be A Farmer?
If you dream of being a farmer, there are life chapters that may open for you to examine the time to buy a farm. For example, I bought this farm in 2004, on a mission to rebuild my life after being a widow for six years. It has a house over a hundred years old, a huge red barn, several outbuildings and a root cellar. There are pastures, fences, trees and a pond.
Apple abundance
Farming is lifestyle, workplace, income, home. The number of small organic farms is growing across the United States. New farmers are dedicated to offering an alternative to conventional growing practices, industrialization and globalization of the food on our supper table every night.
Snickers, our miniature donkey
You can be a farmer, too. Farmers have to adapt, grin, improvise, be patient and get their cues from living things around them. Nature sets your hours. Caring for plants and animals that become part of your universe is both demanding and satisfying. You are the steward of your land.
Farming is physical. The hours are long. When the sun goes down and the hens have settled sleepily on their perches, you might have to pull on your boots to go check a fragile baby calf or find the hole in the fence where the foxes are sneaking in. It can also be lonely and filled with setbacks. Growing food for others can be stressful once you’ve made a commitment to produce and there’s no rain or the vegetable cooler needs an expensive new compressor.
You cannot be in a hurry to buy your farm. Before you talk to your real estate agent about a piece of farmland, pick up Wendell Berry’s book, “The Unsettling of America.” Further homework might include a farm apprenticeship or volunteering at local farms. Walk around with the farmer as he or she works, just observing at first.
Be a good learner. Take advice. Farmers need the community of each other and most are willing to help grow new farmers, especially those who still have the passion in their bellies. Extension agents can help you find each other.
Talking horse sense
Take lessons where you get them. Be humble. No farmer would ever say he knows all there is to know about farming.
Decide what kind of farmer you’d like to be and what you want to produce on your farm. Explore start-up costs, facilities you’ll need and a market for your product. Then, be realistic about the costs of restoration and adding what you need for your farm operation.
Grandma’s iris
Plan to be frugal and sustainable. Buy used. Borrow. Share. Repair. Find your way to Habitat Re-Store and Dan’s New and Used in St. Joseph.
Two horsemen (RCJ)
We buy used machinery from the Amish in Jamesport, Missouri. Our first ‘truck’ was a 1978 cargo van that supposedly drove Willie Nelson from an airport to his hotel room. Our vacations are trips to an occasional auction nearby or reading together in the middle of a winter day. We heat our home with two wood-burning stoves and haven’t run the furnace since 2004. We enjoy fresh sheets off the clothesline, preserve some of our own food and recycle.
Sunning on the porch wall
You can earn money on your farm while still reporting to your “8 to 5” Monday through Friday. Or you can plan to add to your retirement income. This is not a life change for those who want to leap first and plan later.
With Seppi, our rescued German Short-Hair Pointer
Whatever lifestyle change you make to embrace farming, build a transition plan and consider yourself re-tooling. We aren’t retired by a long shot; we’re retooled. Farming can fit almost any life cycle if you’re practical and honest about your energy, flexibility and resources.
Farming is a spectator sport
Farmers who want to create a new income-producing farm have to be willing to take some risks and understand there are few guarantees. You can earn money on your farm while still reporting to your “8 to 5” Monday through Friday. Or you can plan to add to your retirement income. This is not a life change for those who want to leap first and plan later.
Plan to be a good steward of your land and it will take care of you. Your greatest farm input should be your two hands—deep in the soil.
Make a goal of self-sufficiency, throwing in a lot of neighborly farmer support and good weather, if you’re lucky. You’re embracing a way of life; not just a new workplace.
Every day can present new challenges; maybe large, maybe small. But when you get up in the morning you know you’re where you want to be and when you go to bed at night, you know you are home.
Lifestyle, workplace, income, home. (SLB)
“We come from the earth. We return to the earth. In between, we farm.”