The Unmaking of a Farm

Have you ever wanted to hold on to something that brought you to tears? Maybe it made you bleed. Perhaps it was dangerous. Or how about this: every day that you did it reminded you of how bloody futile morality could be?

I started a farm, once. I did okay, I think. Actually, I did pretty well, considering I built it from scratch without knowing a GD thing about actual farming. Everywhere I turned there was some special sort of human reminding me of the right way to do something. The wrong way to do it. This started with horses and went on to everything, including chickens. I didn’t have a dad to build me things or a husband that was much interested in problem solving. I think he got a kick out of me chasing pigs in my pyjamas, but the consequence he laid out if I hurt myself made me too frightened to try much after awhile. I had to solve most of my problems with money, since I didn’t have time.

It got too hard to watch things die, after a time. I was doing okay until my own mother started to die, in the slow way people do sometimes. Then it was my favourite chicken. The goose that would follow me down the lane. My favourite dog. The coons and death itself would leave the reject animals, the ones without brains or heart or so it seemed. I know, I know. How could I say such a thing? But on a farm there are great animals and lesser ones—while value is made acutely apparent upon every life, there are some that I miss more.

My loss of love showed in my work. Feed nearly doubled in price, the pigs would break the fencing, the butcher kept making mistakes on my orders that would lose me clients—while I can speak French, somehow every request I made was misinterpreted (so perhaps I don’t speak French after all). And I hated asking for payment. Following up on invoices was the worst (although I’m sure there is software for this). But after awhile, even when finances are not your biggest concern, the cost of everything hurts.

And last but most important, enter the children. Now that I have stopped farming, save for a horse and our dogs, I can’t imagine how I possibly could have made enough time for them, especially given the fact that I parent alone. I have support, but I am the mother of three amazing humans, the oldest of which has not yet reached ten. How did I possibly care for over 70 pigs, eight horses and countless fowl, never mind an organic market garden (for the record, I will continue to garden, but much smaller thank you very much)? I was so immersed in this work that paid nothing that I rarely had the time to teach my children anything. One would lose interest and wander off and then all was for naught.

So here I am. Farmless. Or rather, occupying a farm without its arms. I am flooded with the feeling that comes after you give up on something. I suppose it’s the same one that comes after a breakup. The greyed out feeling that all is lost, that you are lost. That you have lost.

Fortunately, I’m old enough to know that that feeling passes. The grey shifts and uncovers something new, a return to the old guard. Or perhaps something altogether undiscovered.