Jenna Woginrich is a friend and an author, I went to Battenkill Books last night to  hear her read from her new book One Woman Farm, a beautiful and elegaic memoir of one year at Cold Antler Farm, the small farm she bought a few years ago and has stubbornly and ferociously hung onto. In so doing she has attracted  loyal and supportive friends and readers for her life, her work and her blog. Many of them yearn for a farm of their own.

I call it Farmache, it is a powerful force in an unhappy and disconnected land right now. People came to Battenkill last night to meet Jenna and hear about her new book and pepper her with questions about her drive, her Fells pony, her determination to get a hawk and become a falconer and her willingness to try just about anything, even if she fails. It is okay to be good, Jenna told one questioner, you don’t need to be great at something to try it.

Jenna, like others who advocate the life of the sustainable farm and the small and independent farmer, strikes a chord with people, as did I when I bought Bedlam Farm, a place that captured the imaginations of people far beyond any of my expectations. This summer, more than 1,000 people came to two Open Houses at our new farm, many of them people who tell me all the time their passionate wish is to get a farm of their own. My farm fantasy was different than Jenna’s – I wanted a laboratory to learn about animals so I could write about them, and various therapists have told me I was really looking for life.

Jenna is part of an idealistic movement – one of the most intense in the country – of young people seeking to reconnect with nature, live independent lives free of suffocating corporate work, and help restore the earth.

This afternoon, two interesting young people came from Jenna’s farm over to visit mine – people who visit Jenna’s farm are always welcome to come over the hill and see mine, schedule permitting –  and one of them, a graduate student studying to be a therapist, came and hugged Simon and turned to me and said “this is what I want, more than anything, a farm with animals like this.” I am one of those people who is, as many people have pointed out, almost completely oblivious to the notion that me or my farm or my life has had the slightest impact on anyone but myself. I was intrigued by this intelligent and articulate young woman, who lives in Manhattan, is studying hard at a great college to master psychology,  and who wants more than anything to own a farm. (I have a hunch she wants to be a therapist more, she is not studying graduate farming).

I see why she is a friend of Jenna’s, her eyes absolutely lit up at the thought of her own farm. She had that gleam I have seen so many times – she had Farmache.

I am fond of other people’s passion and fantasies, idealistic fantasies are generally the province of the young, as should be, the world and the future is rightfully theirs. Older people have seen too much and learned to much, fantasies generally unnerve and frighten them, they have seen too many fail. I have been lucky in fantasies, I relate to them. I pursued a fantasy in my late 50’s by buying Bedlam Farm, and then pursued another by getting divorced after a 35-year marriage and setting out to find love. Fantasies can really work for you, if you are focused and strong enough about pursuing them, as Jenna is.  And if you are somewhat mad and driven, as I am. This is one reason why the young can accomplish so much, they have not given up on their dreams, do not yet see them as impossible, have not succumbed to the life of health care and long-term health insurance, the life of “Hollow Men,” as T.S. Eliot called it.

There is a dark side to fantasies, of course, and older people, especially older people with farms, know them well. Farms are rough places, few of them, especially few of the farms that are unsubsidized make it.  Farms break people all the time, I see it every day. I am a writer, not a farmer, I could not survive a week as a farmer. Jenna gave up her corporate job to live on her farm, but talked at the reading about the dozen or so new jobs she has acquired to keep her farm going – logo designs, workshops, farm tours, fiddle camps, the sale of freshly butchered meat. Competition from corporate farms is overwhelming, government regulations suffocate them and young legs tire and wear after a few years, most consumers prefer to buy cheap stuff flown in from Brazil, even if it isn’t good for them. The animals people crave make farms even rougher, they are expensive and demanding. In my annual books tours and other travels, and in my e-mail and other messages online, I see that many Americans suffer in jobs they dislike, living in places that do not uplift or inspire them, aching for some connection to the natural world and the animal world. People who love what they do generally do not have fantasies.

The simple but elemental question about the sustainable farm movement is this: can small farms be sustainable? Or do people have to find other ways to keep their farms intact and live – help from  parents, grants and subsidies, second and third jobs? A sustainable farm is, by definition, self-sufficient, sustainable. A farm like mine which requires book contracts and royalties to maintain – is not sustainable on it’s own, it is generally called something else, a hobby farm, a gentlemen’s farm.

I like to tell people there are plenty of farms for sale if they really want them, they are easy to get, they are dropping like flies in a frost. They sit on the market a long time. When people ask me about Farmache – their yearning for a farm – I often ask them if there is no way they can find meaning and satisfaction right where they are, if they can connect to nature and lead a meaningful life where they stand and life. I know, as Jenna does, the tear in the universe that comes when you leave your other life behind and finally get your farm. You are a refugee in both worlds, you can never go back, you never truly belong here. There seem always to be casualties, people left behind, hearts that are broken, realities to confront. And hard, relentless work.

I would never discourage anybody else’s  fantasy any more than I ever let anyone discourage mine. And I am conscious enough of my youth to know that is not a time of listening, but of doing. I hear that older people are revered in China, they are not revered here.

Nobody wants to hear any cautions of mine, nor should they.  And I have given up playing God, except when it comes to my animals.  It seems to me so ironic that even as Farmache spreads, our entire economic, corporate and regulatory system has conspired for years against the small farm and the small farmer, their future is as challenging as that of small bookstores, pharmacies, record and hardware stores. The world is moving the other way and the world rarely turns around for the fantasies and yearnings of humans.

If I had a million dollars, I would keep my farm and buy a condo in Brooklyn in a flash, it is a fantasy of mine to walk those crowded streets, eat in those Thai and Sushi places, see a movie every night of the week. That is one fantasy I will never pursue, I know better, I have found my life, I will make my stand right here in this place. Nirvana is a story, not a life.

A reporter asked me recently if I had any regrets about moving to Bedlam Farm, and I said sure, I regret that it hurt my family and led to a tough and painful divorce and eventually, a crack-up. I never regret buying Bedlam Farm, but I had any regrets, I told the reporter, there is one: I sometimes regret not ever having any fantasies about living a full and meaningful life right where I was. I never had a fantasy about that.

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You can buy Jenna’s book, One Woman Farm, at your local bookstore or through Battenkill Books Jenna will sign it if you buy from Battenkill.) You can order it online or call the store at 518 677-2515.