My friend Anne Wilson Sweeney has been writing on her Facebook page about being on her farm as another superstorm approaches, and this reminded me that I have now been living on a farm for nearly 15 years. And living on a farm is very different from not living on a farm.
I am glad we are not getting hit with this storm, we got our fair share last year and my get again. But I have been thinking all day about living on a farm.
I am not a farmer, but a writer with a farm, and there is a huge difference. The rhythms and patterns of life are so different on a farm. When I lived in the cities of the Northeast, a snowstorm was fairly simple. You panicked and rushed to the farm, as if milk would suddenly be unavailable on the East Coast, and then holed up until the snow stopped. If you were hardly and handy, you shoveled your own walk, but there were always platoons of kids who wanted to do it for a few dollars.
And the cities and towns took responsibility for clearing the streets, which was always done quickly and fairly efficiently. The new big storms are different, bigger and more disruptive.
We worry every day about the animals on a farm, as well as the fences, grounds and food and water concerns. Grazing animals center their lives around grazing, it is difficult for them when there is no ground for them to forage on. Sometimes they get anxious and quarrelsome, sometimes they start eating barns and fences.
Water is always an issue, if it gets very cold and stays that way, we will have issues with the frost-free water lines. One reason every farm within a thousand miles bled for Joshua Rockwood was that we have lived through drastic plunges in winter temperatures and scrambled to care for our animals through frozen gates and tanks and barn doors.
That can mean hauling buckets from the house out to the pasture, not simple in snow and ice storms. Or chopping through ice for hours or pouring boiling water (or hair dryers) on gates and pipes to thaw them out. We don’t worry much about bread and milk.
Like Anne, we have to prepare the hens in their roost. They won’t come out if they don’t see bare ground, and we have to get them warm and potable water, plus put some extra mash in the coop – they be there for a long time, and we will have to shift feed plans accordingly.
If there is heavy snow and ice, we have to get the feeders inside the pole barn or the hay will get soaked, frozen and ruined. I’d rather the coats of the sheep, donkeys and pony not get covered in snow and ice if avoidable. They don’t mind the cold, or seem to notice it much, but the tend not to care for freezing rain and ice, although it won’t harm them, they are mountain animals.
The dogs love the snow and will plow and run through it to get to the sheep. But if it snows a lot, herding will grind to a halt, the dogs will most puff around self-importantly and lie down.
The pony seems utterly disinterested in the weather, she is out nosing around the grass in snow, rain, even ice storms. The barn cats are savvy now, they appear at the back door hours before a big storm and sleep quietly throughout the storm, they barely move until it’s over.
Maria and I patrol constantly in a storm to check on fences, make sure everybody has dry and fresh foot and water, check all the pipes and fences and stoves. When it snows up here once, the winter landscape is transformed, it means we will not see the ground again for weeks or months. The farmers call it going white. The ground is hard from now until May.
I never set foot on a farm until I bought Bedlam Farm in 2003. It felt like home to me right away. I love living 20 feet from sheep, donkeys, a pony. I love every single farm chore, the closeness to nature and the land, the very special and meaningful way of life a farm evokes and brings to me.
It is not a perfect life by any means, farms are expensive, dirty, difficult and unpredictable. But there is something beautiful and timeless about seeking sheep grazing out the kitchen window, sending the dogs out to move them to the barn, hearing the whinny of a horse at full-time, smelling the earthly spells, feeling the pull of chores that never end and give structure and challenge to the day.
Many people emotionalize the idea of the farm, they see it as a kind of sylvan idyll, a holy grail. It is not those things for me.
I believe this is how we were meant to live, I believe anxious life in ugly and crowded cities working for people who care nothing for me is not natural for me, not how I wish to live. The farm challenges me every day to be alert, to listen to react. I see many people love the life of the city, I was one of them, and would hate being on a farm, it can be draining and relentless.
There is no day off from caring for a farm with animals, few good restaurants, stores or movies around.
But I hope to live on a farm the rest of my life, I hope to die on a farm, this one preferably.
People are always demanding that animals live in nature, then freak out when they do.
On a farm, we see how much easier life for animals is when they can be in the care of people. They need not worry about food, predators, shelter, water, illness, work, activity, attention. In the wild animals can easily die from so many things humans can help fix for them.
Since animals are dependent on us and voiceless, it is important to anticipate what they need, within reason. That gives meaning and purpose to me. They can certainly wait a half-day or so for food and water if they have to, but we work hard to keep everything working and flowing.
The farmhouse is old and hardy, but fierce wind and snow storms can blow right through it, so we need to get dry firewood inside and keep the stoves going or the house will be freezing. In the country, snow is not a crisis but a fact of life in the winter, although the new era of huge storms is different.
Jonas looks like it will miss us, but Anne’ posts inspired me to write about living a farm with animals, our lives are bounded by the tasks, chores and responsibilities of the farm. How curious is life, a farm is something I never knew or thought about for most of my life, not I cannot fathom life away from it, the farm is the Mother in so many ways, it has transformed me, my life, my confidence and well-being, my understanding of the cycles of the earth.