Work on a Farm

Wrote this for English class for my example paper. Hope you enjoy :-)


Work on a Farm

Work on a farm is hard and never finished. This is an international truth. While many believe that a farm is a romantic place full of cute fluffy kittens and sweet lambs, it is in fact a virtual disaster zone. It doesn’t matter how put together, neat, organized and quaint it may look up on first inspection. The reality is that a farmer never experiences the satisfaction of saying to himself, “I’m done with this week’s work. I can finally take a break this weekend in good conscience.” No, if the poor farmer has somehow miraculously finished his goals for this week, either he knows he should tackle next week’s chores to ‘get ahead’ and actually make some profit from his lifestyle, or some kind of natural (or unnatural) disaster strikes, creating more work; either undoing whatever the farmer accomplished or rendering it obsolete.
This was the case on a dairy farm in New Mexico. Hundreds of cows serenely chewed their cud in large plots sectioned off by PVC pipes used as fences, or escaped the hot sun in aluminum, three-sided barns. They appeared as though they hadn’t a care in the world. The Hispanic employees of the dairy however were always hurrying and scurrying to and fro, either cleaning the milking equipment (a never ending chore as the cows were milked in rotation several times a day) or cleaning out stalls (which was never finished as long as living, healthy cows were around to create ‘messes’) or helping a sick cow recover from some bovine malady. There was of course the occasional collapse in fencing which required immediate attention or some dramatic episode in which a mother cow died and her calf needed extra care, all creating extra work for the employees. The owner of the dairy, a Dutchman by the name of Rinke, was a very quiet, laid back man of six feet two inches and maybe one hundred and fifteen pounds. He towered over his employees but was very invested in making sure everyone was well cared for. How the Hispanic men understood Rinke’s Texan-influenced-Dutch-drawl was beyond me, and how he understood the quick staccato Spanglish of his employees continued to be a mystery. However, they all had a system that each appreciated, and encouraged each other in their never-ending tasks.
Another example of never ending farm work was the quaint village home I visited while in Transylvania. This was a farm on a much smaller scale than the New Mexican dairy. The family only owned about three acres of land as opposed to the several hundred acres the dairy was on. The family raised most of their fruits and vegetables and all of their meat on the small plot of land they owned. It was a beautiful example of efficiency. The chickens were at times allowed to run through the gardens munching on whatever bugs were harmful to the steadily growing crops. The pigs were very content in a tiny shack near the garden and took up little room. The grandparents practically lived outside. The grandfather was constantly either shucking corn for the animal’s consumption or chopping wood for the stoves when his help wasn’t being employed by his son-in-law, who not only helped maintain the farm but had a job as a security guard in the village. During the summer months the grandmother maintained the garden and fields, always stooped over weeding and carefully maintaining the grape vines as she walked past them on her way back to the house. Her daughter was the housekeeper-chef extraordinaire, keeping the house meticulously clean despite the mud constantly being tracked into the house and rain creating cracks in the stucco walls or holes in the roof. They were a very happy foursome, all working together to keep the place smoothly running. The seasons each had their designated chores and it was a cheerful circle of life that they lived in. It was efficient, but constant, never ending work.
One final argument proving the validity of the idea that farm work is never ending and hard is my own personal experience of the last five years on a small acreage in South Dakota. When we first moved there, the place was a mess. The previous owners had decided that it was too expensive to take garbage to the local dump and had instead thought it a brilliant idea to bury their trash in shallow graves all over the place. After a hard winter with heavy snows, these mass graves of unwanted objects and deteriorating trash bags were brought to the surface. As a result, the first year of our occupancy on said farm was spent in cleaning up other people’s messes. A wonderful opportunity for training on the mission field, one might argue, however at the time it was simply thought of as a rude move by the previous owners, who made quite a lot of money when selling us their mess. After fixing up the place somewhat, we thought it would be a good experience for the kids growing up to have some livestock. So in irrational group insanity, we bought ducks, geese, chickens, goats, and sheep all within a matter of months. The result was fairly catastrophic. Garden beds which were just beginning to perk up the landscape were ravaged by the fowl, the goats decided the newly-planted fruit trees were far preferable to the weeds, and the sheep were just stupid and tried to kill themselves in every way imaginable. After finally realizing our lesson, the livestock which hadn’t somehow killed itself was all sold at auction. We then set about the task of repairing the discouraging mess that was our landscaping. While garden beds can be established, they still require constant work. Weeding, mulching, fertilizing, planting, and pruning do not stop. Harvesting one’s own food is a wonderful experience but unless one eats it all at once it must be preserved through canning, drying, freezing, etc. A satisfying experience, I say, although still time consuming and never ending.
Life on a farm can be charming, rewarding, and a fun experience. It can also be harrying, hard work, stressful, and downright awful. In either case, it requires hard work. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not for those who like to have clean nails or who believe that flip flops should be worn at all times. It is not for those who think that sheep are cute animals that will peacefully graze unattended in a large field with a delightful brook running through it. No indeed. The sheep will try to drown themselves first chance they get and probably break their legs on the banks of the brook on their gleeful way towards death. Flip flops are hazardous to health on farms as there are rusty nails everywhere and animals who like to stomp on human feet. One’s nails are cracked, chipped, broken, and full of dirt from the garden or the animal pen most days. Oh yes, work on a farm is hard and never finished, although it can be rewarding and adventurous.