“Farming” is a funny phrase, it could mean crop farming for a living, all the way down to a couple chickens and a garden. Everyone can agree the phrase “farming” can be a large umbrella for lots of different activities. We don’t consider ourselves farmers- we think farmers work way harder, way longer and keep this country running- none of those things that we do. But if you ask the kids that come on our farm Zach is the coolest farmer ever. He even gets the title Farmer Zach. So I guess if we take a look from their eyes we do “farm”, we have animals we raise for a purpose, we plant our own food and help it grow and we teach many kids about the joys on the farm.
Now that we have established we do some sort of level of farming- we call it hobby farming- maybe I can come to terms that sometimes farming isn’t easy. Don’t get me wrong I can list all the joys farming ( an I will pry list a few) but right now in this moment I feel we cant catch our breath on the farm and I just cant understand why. First I want to chat about the joys, mainly as a reminder to me, so that I know even when it seems our farm is falling apart- there are so many MORE joys than heartaches.
Joys come in so many different sizes on the farm! Little chickens that just hatched and are nothing but peeping fuzz, watching the miracle of birth multiple times a season, welcoming new animals on the farm the list could go on and on. The biggest joy we have on our farm is sharing all of this with the kiddos that come here with wide eyes and big belly laughs. It will forever fill my soul with happiness to see new kiddos become friends while playing in the corn, or when they realize they can pet a real pig!
But some seasons of farming there is just heartache and it seems we are in the depth of that season right now. Every where we turn something seems to be wrong on the farm. We have had a goat baby pass with no warning signs, here one day, gone the next. We planted four 50 foot rows of pumpkins we have 24 plants that have sprouted, all the time and all those seeds- wasted. We purchased 20 new chickens this spring, excited to let them start roaming- we are down to 9, 5 of which are roosters. Are you feeling the snowball here? We can handle one of these, we know how to roll with the punches but sometimes one small snowball can turn into an avalanche and they are hard to get through. The worst of it all came tonight- when we went to check on a calf that was born over a week ago and we found him almost dead, covered in maggot eggs. We’ve been checking on him every other day because he hasn’t come out of the woods. He was fine Monday- today (Wednesday) he is fighting for his life, after we spent hours fighting for him too. This season we are in, while still filled with sunshine, has been pretty rainy and these are the times we wonder- are we cut out for the stormy seasons?
So as I sit here and wrap my head around this “farming” thing wondering if we are cut out for all this. I know that through the bumps in the road, if we have each other and our family, we can make it through any season. So the answer is and always will be yes because, like I said before, the joys of new babies, the excitement of welcoming a new animal and the lessons we are all being taught are worth it. I know there will be lows, there will be days we cry, there will hard times but I can say that our farming journey has been filled with so much joy to help us get through those times. God gives us new babies, and laughter and love on the farm to help us come to terms with the bad days. And for that- we will wake up tomorrow, ready to take on another snowball because we know after winter comes spring- and that my friends is a beautiful thing!
