This gentleman, who I have just found thanks to Lafayetteangel, who earned her screen name this time, is like me a refugee from Indiana, who has found a home out here on the Nebraska prairie. He’s had many of the same experiences, and in fact, I suspect he lives less than twenty miles from me, judging by his pictures. Don’t worry I won’t tell ’em where to find you :)
In this, he captures something that I suspect a lot us feel, about whether we really make a difference. He grew up farming, and I grew up in a rural electric system (REMC for Hoosiers), And for both of us, the wonders of agriculture speak very loudly to us. Many of you know that my editor, Jessica, grew up on a farm in South Wales, and her longing for it is much like Doug’s (and mine). So here is as good an explanation as I’ve ever read of why we miss it so, and part of the reason we blog, as well.
Although I grew up in a rural Indiana community, farming was far from the first choice as an occupation for most of my classmates. It was the only life I had known up until then and I loved it, it was all I wanted to do with my life. As graduation neared and futures were discussed, many couldn’t understand my plans and asked, “Why on earth do you want to farm?” I was a bit quiet back then so I never really knew how to properly express what I felt. I had my stock answers, but they never really conveyed what it meant to me deep down inside.
It is only now, when I haven’t sat on a tractor seat in fifteen years, I feel I might have found a way to properly express those feelings and really answer their question. You see, I have come to realize I suffer a spring and fall depression when I see farmers in their fields, and I now realize it’s not I wanted to farm, but I needed to farm! As I am sure most farmers can attest to, I have a deep down need to grow something, to nurture it, be it plant or animal, and watch it thrive!
Like a photographer needs a subject, I need to see the first corn spikes poke through the ground, become definable rows, grow tall throughout the long hot summer and produce a beautiful golden ear in the fall.
I need to see the alfalfa green up in the spring, to see those first purple flowers pop open saying it is time to make hay. I need to have the smell of fresh cut hay greet me first thing in the morning as I step from my house. I need to see the barn fill with those green rectangles stacked neatly on top of each other in the barn, as the evenly spaced windrows disappear from the field. I need to stand in the doorway of the barn at the end of a long day and feel the satisfaction and aches from a long, hard, honest days work!
I need to see a field of wheat turn yellow as spring becomes summer. I want to stand in the middle of that field and listen to the plants rustle in a hot summer breeze. I need to scrape a few knuckles as I prepare the combine for the coming harvest. I want to feel the excitement of lowering the combines hungry grain head into an untouched field of those bright yellow plants as they sway back and forth under a noon day sun. I crave the smell of a wheat field being harvested, the sweat trickling from my brow on a day so hot you don’t even have to move to break out in a sweat, but the work must be done, so you do it.
Continue reading Why on Earth do You Want to Farm 2.0 | Gardens, Combines, and Memories.
