three of the new ewe lambs in the foreground
“Hi, I’m Anna, Mr. Mark’s daughter. You caught me. I was just unloading the feed before doing chores. We were expecting you at 10 a.m., and I was trying to get this barn mess cleaned up. I’ll call Dad at the house and see if he can come on down now.”
It’s 9 a.m. on a recent cool spring morning. We have just driven from our farm in the Tennessee River valley into Central Time on the Cumberland Plateau, eventually winding down into the tidy agricultural county of Wilson, an area that, like Berry’s Henry County, has the misfortune to neighbor a large city, yet that at least on this eastern edge still seems to be holding its own, displaying no subdivisions or “look-at-me” McMansions to mar our view.
We’ve arrived at an older well-maintained farmhouse. It sits a couple of hundred feet from the rural road, shaded by mature oaks and surrounded by the perfect wrap-around porch from which to gaze at the occasional passerby. The gravel driveway splits midway, the left fork going to the house and the right making a sweep past a long cluster of outbuildings and around the front of the barn. It occurs to me that the art of laying out a farm driveway is a dying craft, and I’m relieved to see that the long loop allows us to back up to the business end of the barn and then pull forward with ease onto the road.
Our trip to Middle Tennessee is a chance to look over and purchase four ewe lambs, all of them Dorset/Hampshire crosses. These new girls are not old enough to be bred until fall of 2024. But like most small and big farms, ours is in a constant state of evaluating and improving its stock selection. In our case we are chasing the ideal meat sheep, one that will grow well on our pastures, with minimal inputs yet the best-muscled carcass at slaughter. It is a horizon that is never reached.
When we pull in, a young woman of 16-18 and attired in T-shirt and shorts is slinging 50-pound bags of feed out of the truck bed and hauling them into the barn. From the evidence of the remaining bags on the pallet, she has already unloaded a dozen with plenty more to grab. I am struck by her greeting: she is poised and comfortable talking with adults in a direct but respectful manner.
Within minutes of being called, her father arrives on foot from the house, and for the next 30 the four of us chat and examine ewe lambs. They both talk knowledgeably about daily weight gains and overall farm goals for its stock. Mr. Mark’s conversational style with his teenage daughter is considerate, and it soon becomes clear that this farm girl is a full partner in the operation. She maintains her own breeding flock, keeps the records, arranges to have her lambs slaughtered and butchered, and sells the meat to an established base of customers and at the local farmer’s market … and has an encyclopedic culinary knowledge of the various lamb cuts.
When we’ve made the selections, father and daughter hoist the four 75-pound lambs one by one into the pen in the back of our truck. As we drive away, we chat about the experience and Cindy quips, “Hire the farm girl!” And it is true.
Some of you readers may have had the good fortune to grow up on a farm or perhaps work in a family business. You will be nodding your head in agreement. But yours is an opportunity missed by most. It is difficult to convey the maturity that came naturally, and bolstered by 4-H and FFA, to this farm girl. For a farmer to succeed, it requires a complex range of attributes, among them physical strength, intellectual reasoning, and sophisticated social skills. A friend of mine, a well-respected, highly successful lawyer in a small town, was gifted with being raised on a dairy farm. From my observations it shaped him in profound and positive ways: it gave him a leg up in the world that the average coddled youth does not experience, and it rooted him in his community and instilled in him a compassionate heart.
So let us also throw emotional wisdom into this discussion. Lest one of you is thinking that this young woman has been hardened of heart and spirit by her work, that she has been raised to be no more than a merciless money changer, think again. To raise animals from birth and choose which ones will die in order for the farm business to carry on does not produce a callous soul. On the contrary, it cultivates love developed with a clear-eyed view of the means, ways, and limits of compassion, stripped of sentiment and confronted daily by hard choices that cannot be put off on anyone else.
Indeed, we might wish that our leadership class today was pulled from the well-maintained small farms in the agricultural counties of this land. We all might sleep better at night. Maybe it is not just an admonition to “hire the farm girl” — maybe we should elect her, if given the choice.
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Reading this past week: True Grit (C. Portis), a well known book that has been poorly served by two movies. Greenmantle (J. Buchan), a Richard Hannay novel.
What a lovely post! Indeed, “hire the farm girl.” My own beginning was spent on my grandparents farm. My maternal grandfather died two years before I was born. He was far too young at 58, and died from a severe case of pneumonia. My parents had moved into the small house built on my grandparents farm for newly wed children while they figured out how to make a living off the farm. We lived there for about 10 years and I spent the first six years of my life exploring that farm after Grandpa died. That experience created in me a natural connection and appreciation for the natural world that I’ve never lost.
I sometimes think that I would have loved being a farmer on that farm. If my grandfather hadn’t died so young, if he had lived into his 80’s and 90’s as many of his siblings, I might have chosen to remain on the farm. I know farming became very challenging in the 70’s and 80’s (and still is) because of the mad rush to get bigger and produce more farm goods. I know it is not easy to make a small farm profitable, but I wish I had had the opportunity.
At least the farm stayed in the family. My grandmother and her new husband had once lived in the small house on the farm, and after her father died they eventually took over running the farm. Sadly, none of their children wanted to take over the farm after Grandpa died. Ten years later Grandma turned the farm over to one of her nephews, whose granddaughter now breeds cattle on the farm. The farmstead has been in the family for 7 generations…ever since my great grandparents settled in Minnesota during the Homestead Act of 1862, when they immigrated from Norway.
Your post brought back some very nice memories. Cheers, Brian.
Great memories, Jody. So encouraging to hear that your family is still on that land after 7 generations. I think most of us realize, as we get older, how much those first ten years of life influence what we really value.
Brian,
How true about farm kids. But, they are getting rare as hen’s teeth anymore and they have to come from a small farm, not one of the industrialized variety. When I was in High School there were over 60 small dairy farms in this township. Now there are 6 left. 4H and FFA hang on by a thread. The farming “community” almost doesn’t exist anymore. It saddens me to see all the vacant barns caving in for lack of a good roof overhead.
Sorry to be such a downer, but that is the view from my office window this morning. Don
That is true, Don. And no worries about sharing that downer. I keep calling this “muscle memory”. As in, that the act of farming, being a neighbor, or involved in the community, all of it keeps the muscle memory of practices alive so they can be used later. I write things like this piece to remind myself of that need and that there are still plenty of kids that grow up with these experiences. Wish there were more.
Cheers,
Brian
As you know, I’m a “farm girl” and proud of it! I have often thought how wonderful it would have been to have raised my son on our family farm … probably one of my very few regrets.
You know that would have had such a positive impact. hope all is well down in Georgia.
Brian
We are all doing well. Miss seeing you, and the joy of running a book store when it was such a joy to manage! Always great to read your posts! Hope you are enjoying your “retirement” – from the book business! Farmers never retire!
Well, I miss the good people. Others, not so much.