Farming is Not Simplicity

I just got done reading The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball.  A friend gave it to me to read and it's taken a while to do so.  But I finally pulled it off my shelf two weeks ago and only really have put it down in order to go to work.  It's a great book.  It makes me so excited for the spring to come, it reminds me of why I love farming, it makes me realize how much I miss just farming.  With this new job I have had to do more paper work and projects.  I miss going out there with the animals and doing chores.  I think that's why I love and value my early morning and evening animal checks - because it's just me and the animals.  It calms me.  It's a connection that I just don't get anywhere else in my life.  And I think that's why I miss milking cows so much.

This book also helped me figure out why I get so annoyed by people who say farming is a simple way of life.  It sounds so demeaning and patronizing.  A few months ago, a chef intern was at the farm for three weeks.  Her and I became friends and I greatly enjoyed her company while she was here.  But one conversation we had just rubbed me the wrong way, but I couldn't exactly understand why or come up with the words to fight her on it.  She said, "You guys have a very simple life." She meant it in a admiring way, saying that a lot of people long for that.  Why did this bother me so much?  I just wanted to shout, "Simple!? What does that even mean!?"  The word makes me feel very like a very boring human being.  That I choose not to do anything for fear of being vulnerable or that I'm too lazy.  I know for a fact I am neither of those things.

But while finishing The Dirty Life, I came across something that just hit me, that explained my feelings about farming being simple so well:

"A man we know bought up a big piece of good land nearby, a second home, and once, at a dinner, I heard him say, 'In my retirement, I just want to be a simple farmer.  I want...tranquility.'  What you really want is a garden, I thought to myself.  A very, very small one.  In my experience, tranquil and simple are two things farming is not.  Nor is it lucrative, stable, safe, or easy."

Perfect.  Farming is not simple.  It's early mornings, late nights.  It's fighting mother nature but working with her at the same time.  You are surrounded by life and death everyday.  It's dependency on something that can only be controlled to a certain, very short point.  If farming was simple, wouldn't more people do it?  Isn't it more simple to go to the grocery store, buy a dinner where all you have to do is take it out of the box, put it in the oven and wait 30 minutes and it's ready to eat?

I don't live a simple life, neither does any farmer I know.  I'm lucky that I farm for a company, where what I grow doesn't directly affect my income.  I know I may complain about not getting a two day weekend (but that is a little different - I do work for a corporation after all), and it's good to be reminded of a life I could have in this field of work.  But I love what I do because it's not simple.  I want the highs and lows of farming.  I have amazing stories to tell, skills to take with me anywhere in my career and life.  And it was not a simple day on a farm that got me here.  It's been 9 years, and I don't plan to stop.