You can always tell a “gentleman farmer” from a real one. All you have to do is check out the barn. If it’s filthy, rodent-infested, and filled with junk, it’s a working farm of some kind.

If it’s spotless, nice-smelling, and free of clutter it is probably a gentleman farmer or a summer farmer in Vermont.

I’m not into labels, but Bedlam Farm is not a typical working farm, nor does a “gentleman farmer” reside there.

In the United States, a gentleman farmer is a landowner who has a farm as part of his or her estate and who farms mainly for pleasure rather than for profit or sustenance.

Some people have at times referred to me as a gentleman farmer, but it’s not accurate. Maria and I have no estate and have been left nothing by anyone.

And we both earn our living from the farm in differing ways.

I write about it and give away my photos from the farm and collect subscriptions for my writing and raise money for the Army Of Good and its work with refugees and the elderly.

Maria earns a living from the work she does in her Studio Schoolhouse and she also gets paid for the work she does taking videos, photos, and blogging about her art.

She sells her art from there and also sells the sheep’s wool and has it made into yarn and roving.

Our barn is a catastrophe, dirty and chaotic. Once a year – today was the day — we clean it out, toss out the junk, and revel in its very short-lived neatness.

Maria did an astonishing amount of work today, we both are tired and getting ready for early morning medical tests Monday. Hope to be home by late morning.