Farmy

There are times I'm in the middle of doing something, like yesterday when I was moving large round bales of hay with the tractor. I was on my last one, the sun was starting to go down, I was tired from a full day of weeding beds and planting, dirty and sweaty and very hungry (pizza night) and it was like a light went on, and I said too myself with great awe."I just moved all these bales of hay". Its like I catch myself being farmy.

There is some land close by that was owned by a friend who still had some round bales that needed to be picked up. He said I could have all of them, I just needed to find a way to get them. So I went over with another guy I know who has a long hay trailer (fits eight bales). As the guy with the trailer drove around the eighty acres while the son of the new owner loaded them on, I hung out with the dad (new owner) he had just taken some hogs to the butcher and was talking to me about hay and fields and animals and banding etc. The crazy thing was, he was talking to me like I knew and understood what he was talking about, and the truth is I did!

A couple of weeks ago I borrowed a trailer from a friend of a friend. Drove over to his place to pick it up. We had to drag it out of the bushes to get it to a place I could put it on the back of my truck. We haled it out with great ease. The fellow looked at me and said " well you handled that real good" "Oh yea yur a farm girl". My heart skipped a beat, I flushed and i could hear the inside of my head dancing around doing the chicken dance singin' "oh yea baby I am a farm girl!" "that's right f.a.r.m girl!" kind of like when Tom Hanks in the movie cast away, beat his naked chest and yelled, "ME, I MADE FIRE!", I was doing some inner chest beating for sure. But really I just shrugged and drove off.

I don't know what all this means. Maybe I feel validated, a confirmation that this is all very real and I like it. I don't know. But there is nothing more pleasing to me than milking my goats and making cheese. There is no chest beating in that. Instead there is a slow steady humble feeling I get, and am filled with this great sense of gratitude and love.

Speaking of cheese, I made my first batch of chevre of the season and it taste wonderful. The girls are really producing so I've got a daily production routine to work on.

On another note the Cherry Street Farmers Market opens this Saturday. I don't know how much we'll have, probably not much but we're showing up regardless. If you don't know, the market has moved to the street. We are in front of the White Owl. Come by and say hi if you can!