The Changing Rural Scene, Part Two

Recently I wrote about our changing rural scene, but I failed to mention my own part in it. To correct that oversight, here is our little house, located in a rural subdivision made out of an old worn-out farm that probably wasn’t very good to begin with. We live at the end of the road.

I took the house photo just after the sun set. You can see its reflection in the far left window.

Then I went to the garden to cut arugula for supper salad. Dennis was holding my camera and caught me in the act.

We were doing our chores, just as my dad did on his farm, but his were far more numerous and extensive. Our only other chore is to gather eggs and shut up the chickens for the night. Dad had to feed the pigs, the draft horses and milche cow. He also had to milk the cow, often by lamplight after working in his fields all day on horse-drawn implements.

Many farmers suffered serious injuries in their work. My cousin Ewell, for example, lost the lower part of his leg when he kicked at a jam in a combine. He was saved from bleeding to death by his wife, who showed up with his lunch, used her blouse as a tourniquet and drove him to a hospital. Even today with modern machinery farming is one of the ten most dangerous occupations.

So, when I lamented the passing of the old-style family farm last week, I failed to acknowledge the hardship, danger and toil that it required. Our microfarm is a pale echo of times past.

I can't fault farm families for giving up danger and drudgery, but I wonder if they have carried it too far. When we first moved to Paradise, as I mentioned in my last post, we bought gallon pails of milk directly from the dairy. (The milk pails we used are still in the basement, survivors of our ridding-out.) I made butter from that milk and we drank the skim milk. I even made cottage cheese. Imagine my surprise when I saw the dairyman’s wife at Dillons buying a carton of Cool-Whip.

You see, things had changed since the time I was growing up and people strove for self-sufficiency. I was doing things that I had seen my parents and grandparents do, but the dairyman’s wife had given that up. They sold milk and used the money to buy everything else.

Because Dennis and I have access to land, we feel compelled to connect to Earth, participate in her cycles and justify our existence here. It needn’t be as difficult as my dad’s life. Most of the labor he did has been mechanized in modern farming, which is a good thing. My dad, though, loved the earth and knew his responsibility to husband it. He passed that value along to me, as Dennis's dad did to him.

Copyright 2012 by Shirley Domer