The Farmer

Chris asked me to write a regular post here about farming from my perspective. And since I’m usually involved in some of the crazier aspects of this whole endeavor, it will probably turn out to be quite fun to cover them all again. Before I start off on my wild rehashing of farming a .1 acre plot in the middle of a city or rescuing llamas from a rising river, I thought I’d start a little more domestically.

The root of this whole farming adventure can be traced back to my wife. If it weren’t for her, I’m sure I’d be living in a major city doing who knows what. I should have known when the wedding vows were changed to include a donkey. But it’s been an amazing ride. She’s an amazing organizer, world traveler, fully professional photographer and now farmer, mother and whatever else she decides to take up.

She’s a “stay at home mom”. Which means I’m a “working dad”. Luckily my commute is about 6 feet out the back door to my office so I still get to keep tabs on what happens looking out the windows of my office, but I must say that she takes all doubt out of the idea that “stay at home moms” might be busy. She’s usually up at the unholy hour of four in the morning (you better be missing a limb if you try to wake me up before seven). She’s getting things done before the kids wake up. And then she’s cooking and cleaning and milking cows and feeding the horse and and and. And that’s usually before I head off to work.

Then she hangs out with the kids. I think this is one of the best things about how we have things structured. And don’t take this as any kind of anti-feminism, as I admire women who are accomplished in the business field also, but I love that we don’t hand our kids off to someone else to care for and raise and educate. I’m sure it pushes her tolerances to rarely have a break, but our kids learn an immense amount. Not only are they learning regular school stuff like reading and math at an early age, they are also experiencing “crazy” things like how to drive a pony and cart, how to milk a cow, where food comes from. I love that my two year old son asks in all earnestness on the way to his grandpa’s house if he has cows. And then asks about goats, sheep, alpacas and on down the list of all the animals he knows that people can have. And that my kids came up with the conclusion that since he did have a barn that his dogs stay in, that it is possible he might have other animals.

The types of things that you usually read about kids doing long ago in books; my kids do many of them with their mom. There’s virtually no TV and the only video game is occasionally played on a phone when we are out. It’s hard to beat the amount of attention they get.

And lest you think she just spends time with kids, let’s not forget that she’s back doing animal chores again in the afternoon rain or shine, shearing rabbits, spinning the whole, knitting all sorts of clothing and gifts, remodeling parts of our 100 year old farm house, teaching the minature horse how to pull a cart, off bartering with one of her many connections to bring new animals here or get rid of some more. Nothing surprises me much any more.

And then it’s off to ballet or knitting get togethers or spinning groups after the kids go to bed. She’s amazing and though we only see each other in passing (I just can’t get over that four in the morning thing and she doesn’t last much past seven at night), I must say that I love and admire her more and more as we wend our way through this crazy adventure of farming, raising kids, running a computer company and just generally trying to get by.

So with that proper foundation of respect and admiration, I can now proceed with my series of posts about the wild adventures and incredulous activities that take place at and around Cast Iron Farm. I’m sure I’ll emphasize all the wrong things, but it should be a fun trip down memory lane and for those of you who don’t keep close track, you’ll probably never look at us the same!