Hobby farmers, born farmers and the all-important "image"

I’m proud to be a farmer’s daughter, raised in a farming family whose Michigan “roots” reach back to the 1700s when the land was wild and unspoilt. Proud to be working the land that’s been in our family for generations, and having kids in 4-H showing livestock and having responsibilities and chores, and growing up where you can’t even see another house from the back porch. I’d have to consider myself a “born farmer” — I certainly didn’t choose the life, but I’m glad to live it to the fullest.

I’m proud to be surrounded by friendly farmers with dilapidated barns and makeshift pens filled with cows and those pesky cow by-products — farmers who love the land and their families and lifestyle more than the money they don’t have — and knowing exactly where my Memorial Day hamburgers come from. These men and women care about their neighbors, and keep an eye on things when we’re away. They gossip and harass and talk a good game, but they have been there for each other at any hour, whether someone needed a tractor late on a cold, icy night to pull their car out of a ditch, or just to throw some chicken feed in the run if a family is away for a weekend.

I have nothing against the hobby farmer. The hobby farmer can usually afford beautiful new barns and fences. They compost the manure from a dozen animals or half of that, and use it to spread on their organic, fenced garden.

Farmers put food on your table and mine. Give them their well-earned and deserved respect. Farmers are the first to feel the pain of rising diesel fuel costs and being barely able to feed and clothe their own families, and yet bear the burden of being stereotyped as uneducated, illiterate dolts that stand hip deep in manure all day. They are rarely credited with being politically organized and articulate activists like those who led the publicity campaign to uncover Jackson County’s major lapse in good judgment.

Posted in freelief
Tags: farming

PIE BALLS

How do you know when you’ve found
“the one”—your true love?

Was watching Juno tonight with the girls (note: good movie for socially mature DD-15, not so much for boy-crazy DD-10 who needs to not date until she’s 30) and my pirate husband walked in on the mushy-mushiest part. (Mush always makes him groan; he runs and hides in the man cave when I bring home chick flicks. DS-13 was also noticably absent.)

That was golden. :D

Everyone needs to have a love like this at least once in their lives—a “forever” love—the kind where you can totally see yourselves as old farts chasing each other around the nursing home with your canes and walkers or wheelchairs.

The kind where those little flaws in all of us are more adorable than annoying because they make you real.

Now, you might not find it when you want to.

You might not find it in your teens, or in your twenties. Maybe not even in your thirties. (God forbid you never find it, though. I don’t think there is anything cuter in this world than really old couples who are still twitterpated.)

You might even find it and then throw it away. But if you’re lucky—really damn lucky—you’ll find that it was never really lost at all, just … ripening.

I am THE luckiest mentally imbalanced pirate princess evarrrrr.

Posted in freelief
Tags: Juno movie