A day in the life of a farmer...

A day in the life of a farmer you ask?

A simple answer would not suffice. I could say we wake with the sun, have coffee, collect eggs for breakfast, tend to our animals, harvest beautiful crops, hay fields, sell our bounty at markets, enjoy the simple life that is very much romanticized. The truth is…

A day in the life of a farmer is a dream but far from a typical dream I like to say. It is a dream soaked in growth, challenge, simplicity, mundane, beauty, chaos, over and over and over again.

It is waking with the purpose to tend, to feed, to grow, to steward for something bigger than yourself, rain or shine, hell or high water.  

Each day is unique, and never like yesterday, which I believe is the most beautiful part of farming.

Some days its bottle feeding a new born lamb, seeding trays with hope of growth, relieving crops from weeds so that they can thrive, rotating our sheep and cows to fresh pasture, laughing at the pigs playing in the mud, listening to the quiet hums of life growing around us.

Some days it’s cursing the skies, fighting equipment, chasing escaped animals, feeling exhausted, saying goodbye to animals we have loved, hanging onto faith, accepting defeat.

We find structure in the truths of farming, we must take care of the life we are responsible for, our animals and crops. We also live by our own truth which is we must provide the highest quality food we can for our beloved community, honestly and humanely. With these truths our days are found educating ourselves, learning from trial and error, relishing in what works, and continuing to be better.

So…a day in the life of a farmer you ask?

Is walking in the known and unknown at the same time. Is knowing well enough and not enough. Is mastering your trade only to then master another one. It is understanding when to surrender and when to gain control. It is simply living day to day right alongside nature in hopes it’ll teach you everything you need to know. I will leave you with this, a day in the life of a farmer will be a day you are never sorry for.