The Gulley’s kitchen is rarely empty these days. Much of the time, there are other farmers, neighbors, friends, family, dogs, cats, an occasional goat and Ed and Carol themselves. Plus a lot of food.

There is no equivalent i know of in urban life to the  sense of community among farmers. You can see it in almost any farm kitchen, but you will not be able to see it too much longer.

In the past 40 years, the United States has lost more than a million farmers and ranchers to corporate agribusinesses and giant and profoundly impersonal farms.

On corporate farms, they don’t know the names of each cow because the cows don’t have names. They don’t put old cows out to pasture because there are no old cows.  They put the cows down as soon as their milk output drops or they get a cold.

There are no farm kitchens either.

Today, only nine percent of farm income comes from farming, more and more farmers sell their farms or look elsewhere for their primary source of income.

If you spent much time in a farmer’s kitchen, as I have in recent years,  you will see what they represent.

Ed Gulley was diagnosed with brain cancer recently, and there has been an unending stream of visitors, almost all of them bringing ice cream, lunch or dinner, lots of conversation, farm gossip and old stories,  chatter about tractors and milk prices. Most of them are getting old.

Very few people mention Ed’s brain tumor, it doesn’t really need to be talked about. They laugh and argue and have fun.

Survey after survey has found that Most Americans, now clustered along the coasts in urban and suburban cities and towns, rarely see their neighbors, know them or interact much with them. People drive in and out of their homes, hire landscape workers, and have no idea who is living in sight of them.

There are many values in rural America, and especially in the dwindling farm communities, that are precious and cannot be replaced. One is that when there is trouble, everybody comes running. Another is that on Sundays and weekday evenings, people would rather talk and visit rather than go on Facebook or Twitter.

On family farms, the nerve center is always the farm kitchen. Family farms are rich in life, warmth, food and community. These kitchens are almost always still the domain of the farm wife, that has not changed. Carol Gulley rides a tractor as well as any man, but the kitchen is her province, her headquarters.

The kitchens are always up and running, there is always coffee in the pot, cookies on the table, food in the fridge, bills on the table.  Farm kitchens are the never- closed heart of the farm.

My world is different.

I never stop by in anybody’s house with calling first, and I don’t like it when people stop by my farmhouse without asking, it interrupts my work and concentration.

I am always welcome in the Gulley kitchen, or in any farm kitchen, the houses are always messy and filled with junk and dog or cat hair, nobody has time to clean up every day, or mop up the smelly stuff people bring in from the barns. There seems to always be something cooking on the stove, jugs of fresh milk in the fridge.

Everybody takes their boots and shoes off, throws their jackets on a chair, sits down. You better eat something in a farm kitchen, it is expected. “Have something to eat,” the farmers and their wives say, pushing plates of food across the table, again and again, if necessary. Sooner or later, you take the hint.

Farming is a love-hate thing, especially these days.

Milk prices are the same as they were in 1970, some milk distributors are handing out suicide prevention pamphlets along with milk checks. The Center for Disease Control reports that farmers are killing themselves in record numbers, and  at a higher rate now than any other occupation in America.

What a turn from just a couple of generations ago, when three quarters of the country lived on farms, and rural life was rich and busy.

Many farmers are hoping to save their farms by killing themselves  giving their families the insurance money from their deaths.  They hope to pay off their debts and somehow keep their farms alive.

Others, say farm officials, are disguising their suicides as accidents.

There is a global oversupply of milk now, and suicides among dairy farmers are no longer a surprise, or even something that draws much attention. The farmers say there is no relief in sight, so many are giving up, one way or the other.

To a great extent, their plight is the result of government policy and economists recommendations. After World War II, the federal government decided that small family farms were inefficient, and steered money and tax credits to the large corporate farms. These policies, still in effect, helped cause the devastation of rural farms and communities that is showing up today in our bitter national politics.

They took the factory jobs away too, and then wonder why so many people are so angry with government.

In my life here, I have taken a lot of photos of small farms, and had coffee in a lot of farm kitchens, most just like the Gulley’s. The warmth and support and community in those kitchens is priceless, and it is no wonder Ed Gulley chooses to hold court there as his community rallies around him.

Like many farmers, Ed is angry about the destruction of farm life,  of the family farm. We all seem to have conspired to let them go. He loved his farm, but was despairing of the future.

The small family farm is unique, it was essential to the building of America and its character, it cannot ever be  replaced. These people shaped the values and identity of our country. We will be much more barren without them. We are letting them go without so much as a yawn. They were never once mentioned in any presidential debate of 2016.

“Farmers farm for the love of farming,” wrote author and farmer Wendell Berry.”They love to watch and nurture the growth of plans. they love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live.”

That has surely been the story of the Gulley’s  and of their lives. I am drawn to these people and their farms and kitchens and cows because they are evocative and iconic, but also because I want to record their lives before it is too late. There is nothing else like them.

One day soon we will all awaken to what has been lost, and can never be replaced.