Farm Envy

Sometimes I think life would just be so much cleaner on a farm. Food: organic. Work: honest. Play: in the in-betweens, not extra maybes. Thoughts: uncluttered.

Just looking out the car window and seeing these open fields with soft lofty skies opened up a place in me that I thought was lost. It brought a longing for being connected. It brought a desire to smell sour cow manure and sweet horse food. It brought along farm envy.

Watching the tractors spin slowly over rows of gold have replayed in my mind like a favorite song for days. Their deliberate and unhurried rotation was purposeful and strong. The straight and linear cuts through those rows were like veins leading back to the mainline - the homestead, always understated and out of the spotlight.

I had the absolute blessing of a living on a farm for eight months in my early twenties. It was a rich man's farm, yes, but we (the rich man's helpers) were the ones to feed and water the cows and bull every day and night for those eight months. We didn't get paid but we got free room and board and use of a vehicle in return for helping around the farm. This meant that city girl me got to drive a gluttery diesel truck whose driver side was stuck shut so had to slide in through the passenger side just to turn the key in the ignition. We used a tractor to round up the very naughty bull who had a big crush on a cow up the street and would stomp on one section of downed fence long enough to finally walk right over it. If you've never stared into the eyes of a sexed up bull while sitting on a bobcat trailer like bull bait, I highly recommend the rush of it.

So, yes, it's easy to get caught up in the romance of waving alfalfa and tall silos from the comfort of a suburb and a day that begins with Nickelodeon and ends with the ice-cream man. It's also easy to forget that living and working on a farm is grueling, relentless, raw, and tough. But all that still doesn't change the big wash of farm envy I felt when driving through Lancaster, PA. It doesn't take away the notion that life on a farm is both impossibly hard and abundantly real.