It Had to Happen

Things I miss about the farm. You knew it had to happen. Sooner or later I'd bemoan this city life and yearn for the sweet (think cow dung) smell of home.

Only, I don't really miss it.

Not really.

Okay, I miss a few things.

I miss my children trotting down the road to fetch the mail. It was a heckofa long way from the house and it was always good fer stretchin' yer legs after a long day of school.

I miss the silence of it all. Sitting with my Beloved on the patio, listening to the crickets as they played their evening symphonies. Candles would flicker in the setting sun as the sky blazed pink and blue. Then we'd run into the house because the skeeters would eat you ALIVE.

I miss my yellow rose bush.

I remember when I'd lay a sheet out in the yard. It would lay partly in the sun and partly in shade because the children could never agree to be in one or the other. Then we'd read funny poems from  Shel Silverstein and spit watermelon seeds.

I miss Mom's butterfly bush.

I'm certain I have a scar from raspberry and blackcap picking. There must be at least one burn mark from canning peaches or pears. Sometimes I can smell that rank stench of cattle in the morning and see the flies as they gently alight and then land on the hard rump of some bovine.

I miss...But wait. Most of these are memories. Only some are things I truly miss, like rose bushes. I suppose it's not the farm I miss, but the little farm hands.

I do not miss bovines or dung or tangled wire. Or nails or tacks or that weird thing we used on the calves. I do not miss the bats that would swoop down at dusk in the barn. I do not miss the rats when we had chickens. And I certainly do not miss the chickens.

But I miss farm kids.

Dirty, smelly, tanned farm kids.

No Hot Wire Required

We have a new calf here on the farm. She's a scrapper I tell ya. If you drive along the fence and she happens to be there, she will dart in the opposite direction as if you were coming for her. Then she'll whip around and look at you as if to say, "Can't touch this!"

Her birth was exciting because this is the first calf to actually live past the three day mark in a couple of years.

Calving is funny business.

I was so glad (oh, so glad) to note that the new calf was a "she" and not a "he". If you don't know why...well...let me just say that steer are not born that way. It's not genetics.

Ahem.

I always feel sorry when there is only one calf. It's so lonely. The calf wants to run and play! The other, older cows just want to be left alone to chew the cud. Literally. The calf will make several attempts to engage someone, anyone to play with her. It usually ends up with her getting kicked or nudged aside.

Poor little thing!

But that's farm life. It's either kicking you or nudging you into doing something you don't really want to do. Like fix a fence or move the cows. Farm life is not for the weary of heart or the weak of hand. It's all work. All the time.

It was also a great place to raise the kiddies.

But the kiddies are gone now. Beloved, who has been farming since he could walk (truly, just ask him), has had enough. He takes no joy in the sweetness of a new calf. For him, it all means work after he's returned home from his day job. Bucking hay has lost it's appeal.

Not that it ever really had any.

I know I'll miss the silence and the sound of the wind whispering through the trees. I'll miss the distance between neighbors. I'll miss the long walks down a country road. I'll miss picking blackberries out in the back pasture. I'll miss the warm afternoons sitting on the patio. I'll miss the large parties we've had with friends, where we spilled out into the yard and watched our children play bad mitten and bounce on the trampoline.  There were good times here.

Good times.

Yet, I'm looking forward to a home that doesn't require an electric fence. It will be a place where the buffalo do NOT roam. I think it will be swell.

That's if we ever get to actually move.

I'm a City Girl Dad Gum It!

I am a city girl. Tis true. Beloved knew this when he proposed to me in the front seat of a 66' Chevy Pickup. Come to think of it, I should have gotten a clue considering it was the "farm" truck used to haul everything from feed, to hay, to animals.

I shoulda known.

Don't get me wrong, there is no better place to raise a couple of kids (children not goats, although a farm is perfect for goats too). We never had the bad neighborhood kid to deal with. Loud neighbors? Not a problem! Beloved could crank his stereo without fear of retribution. Children can raise all sorts of interesting farm animals and invite their friends over for air soft wars without the local sheriff showing up to bother anyone. Yes sirree Bubba, a farm is a great place for a family.

Until...

There is work to be done.

I'm just sayin'.

With FIL laid up in Rehab, Beloved and I have found a new hobby. It's called, "Fixin' the Old Man's fence before the cows get out."

Now, doesn't that just sound like too much fun?

FIL in all his wit and wisdom did not purchase hay this year. Or last year, for that matter. In the past, he would purchase ten to twelve TONS of hay, which we would install in the top (yes, top) of the barn. This usually involves a hay elevator (not nearly as much fun as it sounds) and a good couple hours of sweaty, sticky, family fun.

Ahhh the good old days.

These days, FIL would purchase hay from a local grower, drive over in his ancient Toyota pickup, load up Ten to fifteen bales, and unload them into the front feeder (it's so much closer to the house, dontcha know).

Only, FIL is in Rehab...so Beloved went to the grower to get hay. But the grower wasn't there. He went to another local grower. Then another. Then another. No luck. He finally found a grower with third cut alfalfa for $10 per bale.

I know...$10 per bale. That's like two Starbucks! Or half a manicure!

At that price you cannot afford to feed cattle. Not to mention, this is HIGH end feed. This is stuff you feed to show horses! Not big, stinky, cattle. Or at least not our cattle.

So, even though it's a month early, FIL said, "Turn them out into the back pasture. But the fence isn't working..."

Do you see where this is going?

Needless to say we spent all day, okay most of the day...no, now that I think about it, it was pretty much all day, working on the fence. This involves walking uphill, both ways, from our house to the field. It involves four trips to our local farm store because we cannot find things like insulators. It also involved a bloody battle with blackberry vines.

The vines won and I have the bloody wounds to prove it.

And after all that work, the fence works better than it ever has before and I can rest in peace knowing that the cows will not get out into the neighbors pasture and feast on his gloriously green field.

But I just want to say that I did not sign on for this. No where in my marriage vows did it say anything about feeding cows. It also left out the part about herding them through a "lane". I'm pretty sure I missed the part about walking a fence line to clear it, patching a broken fence, or installing a new line of barbed wire. I'm pretty sure I would have caught that.

I'm a city girl!

The worst thing I'm suppose to worry about is breaking a nail when I order Chinese to be delivered.

Note to city dwellers: No one delivers Chinese in the country.

So rest easy my city peeps. The cows are in lock down and all is peaceful here in the country. Do keep in mind though that it's calving season...Mercy!