For a college student, I think a lot about buying 100 acres of farm land in Western Massachusetts and some chickens. Recently (like, this year), I’ve had the epiphany that I should be a farmer because whenever I think about what I should do with my life (become a writer? an educator? a public servant?), some voice inside my head comes out and says “till the fields, reap what ye sow, feel Mother Earth’s fertility.” It’s a very strange voice, considering I have never successfully grown a vegetable in my life.
At the same time, it makes a lot of sense. I’m the type of person who thrives at county fairs, contemplatively walks around her property until sundown and obsessively compiles vegetarian recipes from Food Network celebrities. And my specific vision about being in Massachusetts’s Pioneer Valley doesn’t come as a surprise either because I have always felt a gravitational pull toward its beautiful trees, and the fact that the people there seem to put a lot of bumper stickers on their cars. I also feel like it would be pretty easy to find someone there to give me pottery lessons, which I foresee as being of the utmost importance to future-me.
I’ve been trying to honor my emerging agrarian consciousness, which has led to a lot of fantasizing about the aforementioned 100 acres of farm land and the chickens. I can see myself so clearly there—sitting on the porch of a red farmhouse I built with my two bare hands and shucking corn as my golden retriever chases her tail, my husband plays covers of Cat Stevens songs on guitar and my two children weave daisy chains and recite the bucolic poetry they’ve memorized. Most of my economic transactions are done through bartering, I keep a hive of happy honey bees that would never sting me, and I live in a community that raises barns, organizes potlucks and holds square dancing lessons.
This is my utopia! All I need are a handful of zucchini seeds, a wide brimmed hat, and to get over my fear of being trampled by a herd of cows. The more I think about it, the more I wonder what I’m doing in college. I should be saving my money to buy a tractor! I should be reading the Farmer’s Almanac, not Foucault! I should be pursuing USDA organic certification!
I grew up in a small town, so I know that I’m probably romanticizing this. Sure, it’s nice to see a few horses on your drive to school or walk alongside crumbling stone walls like the second coming of Henry David Thoreau. But like, the most lit party I went to there this summer was the police station open house, and the most thriving business in town is the gas station. What am I supposed to do, buy lottery tickets to entertain myself?! For this reason, I would need my farm to be in a place that subverts insular small town culture (so no bigoted townsfolk please!).
When it comes down to it, I see myself as a farmer because it seems like a very pure way of life. Taking care of the Earth and providing for other people are important. I suppose right now these values are manifesting in this vision of myself, sunburnt, smiling, eating tomatoes right off the vine, and contributing to a wholesome community of neighbors and sheep. I still have time to figure out how I want to spend my days. Until then, I’ll try not to neglect any more pots of cilantro, look into buying a pitchfork, and perhaps most importantly, think hard about whether I want manure to be a thing I deal with regularly.
Yeah, that’s going to take a lot of soul searching.
Image via Sarah Clapp.