The Soul Farmer

The first thing she showed me was an aerial photo of her land. It's fitting, as she later told me she counts her relationship with the land and the animals on the land among her most intimate relationships, along with her family. I followed her as she hayed the horses, milked the two cows (whose milk she shares with their calves), fed the meat chickens (and gave the leftover chicken carcass from an overnight hawk attack to her dog) and rotated the cows' pasture.

Her fields aren't as fertile as she would like. She thinks she'll need to bring in more manure. This job of recovering the land needs more manure than it can sustain.

She spoke of this farm as her soul's work. She said she's figured out what orchestra she needs to play in, even what part of the orchestra, she thinks, but she's still figuring out what her song is, what notes are hers to contribute.

I lost track of time listening to her and watching, and rushed out. But as I drank of a glass of water for the road, I overheard her nine-year-old telling his friend, "Do you know what happens when a chicken dies? The other chickens eat its intestines because they think they're worms."

(Yep. He's right on. I saw it with my own eyes this very morning.)

Crazy Grazey Lady

After she gave up with the too-big post hole digger, we sat under an apple tree just outside the pigs' enclosure. The sun was warm and bright and she had to shade her eyes with her forearm, until she pulled her chair a bit further under the branches' dappling. She put a small table over the fresh cow pie between our chairs, and Nick placed a gorgeous tray with two tall glasses of fresh, homemade iced tea with a lemon slice, a bowl of multi-coloured cherry tomatoes and another of deep blue grapes.

It was glorious to be away from my gray cubicle and in the last warm sunshine of September. It didn't smell much like a farm. The wind just whiffed a few farmy breezes now and then.

So we sat in this dreamy setting and watched the pigs snuffle from their feeder and bump each other and watched the cows mow the grass by the driveway and we talked about nutrition and abattoirs and soil health and the problems with organic farming and the problems with conventional farming.

She is deeply pragmatic. "They don't know they'll be dinner in a few months."

"We leave at 9 in the morning and they're dead by noon."

I didn't photograph much, opting instead to get a feel for the place and for her. I hope she lets me come back.