There is nothing like having to go out in your garden to work on a day when the temperatures are in the high 80s F (may as well be in the 150s F for a New Englander) having no choice but to get the work done right now, to make you think about how hard real farmers have had it, both in the period before power equipment and now that power equipment is both an economic necessity, an enormous expense and a burden and a worry all in itself. And even more so migrant farm workers and hired and tenant farm workers. It's not all sitting in an air conditioned cab with TV and air conditioning.
Rick Allen shared this song with me and it is so good I'm paying it forward to everyone, with thanks to Ry Cooder for his contribution to it.
We worked through Spring and Winter, through Summer and through Fall
But the mortgage worked the hardest and the steadiest of us all
It worked on nights and Sundays, it worked each holiday
Settled down among us and it never went away
Luckily, my parents, especially my mother, took care of the worry about losing the farm to the bank by putting it under conservation easement and a family trust. As long as we can pay the taxes we don't have to worry about keeping it and by the conservation agreement, it can't be developed. Every time I hear about families that split up and break up and farms lost over inheritance squabbles I am grateful to them for having removed that possibility from happening to us and the farm.
Now, I've got to get out to the garden.
No comments:
Post a Comment