Why We Chose to Work on a Farm for Our Summer Vacation: PART TWO

Picking up the Wheelbarrow and Marital Tension

As I mentioned in PART ONE, we have been thinking a lot about the ease of life when you live in a first-world-everything-at-your-fingertips city. We wanted to put our kids in a few agricultural situations this year to highlight the pace of life and what it takes for things to grow and flourish. Ironically, at the first rest stop two hours in, we realized we had forgot Fern’s front pack which in my mind was absolutely necessary to the image I had of wistfully wandering through wheat fields with her strapped to my back while the Little House on the Prairie theme played from the heavens. There was some overt mumbling directed towards Matt’s line of hearing about how “I do all the packing for five people and if anyone would just put some thought...” But I usually trail off since Matt does all the taxes, and 97% of French administration unless I’m feeling sassy that day and want to get busy with the Google Translate tab on my computer.

After we were back in the car and I had stopped mumbling, we were shocked to find out that Amazon could deliver the next day to this middle of nowhere French farm. Even before we had stepped out of the car to our “rustic” vacation, we had already taken two modern tech steps back.

Farm life was an easy sell to Millie and Emerson once they realized they were going to a place where giant versions of their favorite animal figurines were about to come to life and we’d be less strict about them eating food off the ground. Personally, Matt and I wanted to see the daily rhythms and work of people who have a responsibility to growing and caring for the food we eat and get our hands dirty. But not Paris metro dirty.

First, this spring we found a dairy farm that had a small guest cabin. The cows wandered up to the fence near our tiny abode and the farm dog “Loustic” was so into our kids that he would sneak his way into the house and lay outside their bedroom door. We spoke with the farmers who talked about how, unlike most of France, they finally had their first vacation in five years because they trained the brother-in-law, someone they could trust, to watch their cows. The routine and tethering of being a farmer was something I was loosely aware of as my Grandfather was a big corn farmer in Indiana and we typically had to go visit him since he never felt like he could leave his crops.

After we got acclimated to the smell of cow pies and learning more about the life of a dairy farmer, we wanted to get more hands-on. Which is saying a lot since my farming baptism by fire was holding nine month old Fern too close to a cow who was standing on cement. Let’s just say that the velocity of cow pee ricocheting off pavement is something I could explain more if I had not quit my high school physics class day one, but, needless to say, it was not a sprinkle baptism.

For our next farm, I had initially looked into W.O.O.F.ing, which is not a dog training program but stands for “Worldwide Opportunities On Organic Farm” and you typically live and eat in exchange for working on the farm. Most of the lodgings were actually just a yard that you would bring your own tent and live out of but I wasn’t ready for that level of commitment with a one year old sleep diva who needs black out shades and no wolves.

The farm we found had solid reviews. You could camp on their property and join them for a meal or if you needed lodging, there was an option to rent two rooms. Having two rooms and meals on a fully functioning farm sounded like the perfect plan so we signed up for ten days of room and board with the husband and wife farmer duo. (We found out later that was longer than anyone had ever stayed. Which in hindsight, may be why the reviews were good.)

I have tried to weigh what is and isn’t pertinent to share about our experience, but I also know people will ask where the farm was and if we would recommend. What I will say is that unless you like living in small quarters and sharing meals and one toilet for ten days with the palpable marital tension of strangers, it’s not going to be your farm-go-to. As we drove away on our final day, I may have given a hand written three page letter to the husband to respectfully challenge him to consider tending to his marriage in the same way he cared for his crops. Other than that, IT WAS GREAT.

And by great, I mean it accomplished the goal we had hoped for which was to have an up close look at farm life and to not jump ship and rush off to the all inclusive resorts we were Googling at 4am because it wasn’t as idyllic as we had hoped.

So what did you learn about farming Joy?!?!!?

I’m getting there…it’s all tied together.

Truly, we didn’t expect it to be idyllic. As I mentioned, my grandfather was a farmer, and Matt and I both grew up doing jobs that required us getting dirty (he worked on a big boat cleaning the latrine drain tube and I worked painting student housing at Michigan State University and let’s just say the odor of those places still put paint thinner to shame). We knew we were signing up for hard work so that wasn’t the issue. Learning to bring in the cows at night, move the fences for the goats, herding the chickens, chasing the sheep to give them their meds and seeing our kids’ natural comfort around farm life was such a refreshing change of pace.

Millie horse-whispered every single livestock and named the kittens like Santa with his reindeer. Fern consumed 83% of her B.M.I. in strawberries that I broke my back picking (only because her 1/2 ton body was strapped to me). Emerson was great at throwing away the weeds we picked in the garden, but mostly he liked watching Matt shovel poop and play with the dogs. It was amazing to see the kids hang out out with nothing to do, but really everything to do. Personally I thought I was going to be the most amped on the horses, but my affection was surprisingly with the goats.

Goats are much easier to milk by hand than cows, (think udder to hand ratio), they make glorious cheese and they mow and fertilize the lawn really well. They were also really cute, especially this little runt baby that always trotted into the barn after the rest of the group. He seemed a little absent minded to me and that made him a whimsy little character I wanted someone to write a children’s story about. My heart really bonded with him when the farmer told me that he had been healthy and keeping up with the other goats when he was first born, but then he lost his momma and ever since then, sorta lost his pep.

Given Fern turned one year old the day we arrived at the farm, got her first tooth and stopped breast feeding simultaneously, EMOTIONS FOR ME WERE HIGH. I wanted to pick that little goat up just like a baby and tell him everything was going to be ok and that I would be his new mommy. The farmer did in fact pick him up one evening (not with the maternal gentle whisper in his ears as I would have) because he wasn’t crossing the road to return to the barn with the other goats. He was still slowly eating grass, unaware he was alone except for the three humans watching him. She set him down in the goat pen with the others and I made a mental note to be the first in line to pick him up and take him to bed on a subsequent night.

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Truly, the reason this follow up to PART ONE has taken me so long to write is because I’ve had to really think about what happened there. I haven’t quite known how to share the strongest feeling Matt and I have had since leaving and reflecting on our bizarre ten days of farmer-in-the-dell. (Or perhaps farmer-in-the-marital-hell?)

First, visiting two different farms for a total of thirteen days makes us anything but experts on agricultural life and practices. Second, and we could be wildly wrong, but our feeling was that there was a correlation between the state of the farm and the farmers’ marriage.

One night, after the kids were in bed and the farm chores completed, Matt and I went outside to look at the stars and discuss the highs and lows of the day. Since the farm was set up to be a working farm and not a luxurious five-star hotel, there were very few places to relax and unwind. It was quite dark but there was a wagon and some tractor equipment set out that the animals would use for shade in the heavy heat. We decided to step over the electric fence to find something metal and rusty to relax on.

“Oh, Matt look! There’s a sleeping goat under here.”

In the span of .078 seconds I went from thinking my glorious moment of carrying a cute goat to bed was upon me to realizing it was not sleeping.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Matt, I don’t think it’s sleeping. Oh please don’t be the little goat.”

I ran to find one of the farmers who had given us their ground floor rooms and were sleeping in the attic. We weren’t permitted in their quarters but I gently knocked on the door to the stairs leading up to the attic. No answer. I then opened the door and called a bit louder into a dark void until I got a somewhat annoyed and sleepy response.

“I think one of the goats is dead,’ I whisper yelled, my heart pounding as if there was some type of chance for taking action and bringing a goat baby back to life.

He told me to go find his wife and tell her. He said this in the tone of someone who I now believe already knew the goat had died but had not moved it, and had experienced enough animal death in his several years of farming (after leaving a successful job in the city) that he didn’t appreciate my seasoned experience as a week long farmer ruining his slumber.

I found the awake farmer and she came with me to confirm that it was my little Tiny Tim and, unfazed as if she too had done this a lot, moved him into the barn.

The next several days, in the heat, the goat remained in the barn right behind the door where Millie and Emerson often played. We hadn’t told the kids and I was really hoping something would be done before they made a discovery that would probably be seared in their tiny brains for life. Look, I am all about resilience training but I wasn’t quite sure this was the starting point for four and six year old city slickers. The morgue of choice was also where the helmets for horseback riding were kept. It was very dark in there and one day, assuming he was no longer in there, I almost tripped on his little body when coming in from the bright sun to hang up a helmet.

“Should we do something with the goat?” I asked.

It seemed the wife assumed the husband would do something and it seemed the husband knew if he waited long enough, she would do something. The sanitary implications were starting to get to me so I asked if I could help do whatever needed to be done. I also felt that the idea of farming is often romaticized but if I wanted to be realistic, “animals dying” needed to be pinned to my vision board next to the woman making sourdough and wearing a linen smock with perfect whips of hair falling in her surprisingly un-sweaty face.

The wife obliged my request and told me to get the wheelbarrow. Call me a farm diva, but I wasn’t quite ready to pick up a goat that had been in a hot barn for three days with my bare hands so I let her do that part. But I pushed Tiny Tim down the rocky hill, trying not to slip, with Matt by my side. The farmer walked with us and we asked her how often they have to dispose of animals and is taking them beyond the fence to where the badger lives in the forest standard protocol? (This was not the kids story I wanted someone to write.)

The only animals they took to Badger Forest were the ones unregistered. Horses and larger livestock had to be reported and picked up. We put the sweet goat down, and put a few flowers on him. I didn’t know if I should say a prayer or what, but it felt like a moment that called for some sacredness and a moment, should “Farmer” ever be part of my resume, that I would probably never get used to. I’m grateful I pushed myself to participate in taking Tiny Tim to his final resting, but I can confirm, in case anyone is wondering, watching Netflix is way less demanding.

Because Matt and I are question askers, we found ourselves filling the awkward moments with the farmers by asking many. As time went on, the wife opened up more.

“Sometimes I think we might be doing something wrong. We’ve actually had a lot of animals die. Multiple cows have been struck by lightning.”

“I’m sorry, multiple? Is that a thing?”

“Yes, it has to do with their flat backs. But to happen more than once in the short amount of time we’ve lived here and had this farm is odd.”

She went on to share about all the animals that had died and again, while we know circle of life and all that, it sounded like even she knew something was not right. She talked of entire crops of potatoes they had lost which must have been devastating. They also had two massive vegetable gardens (his and hers) where weeds had dominated large portions and only the crops they were able to tend to in their individual plots could survive. There was a massive herb garden that their donkey roamed around in that was overgrown like the secret garden. They said it would be hard to believe but in prior years it had been amazing but they hadn’t been able to keep up with it and nothing was harvestable because the weeds had won.

I wanted to help but didn’t even know where to start.

Still we managed to eat all of our meals from mostly farm grown produce or locally sourced products. They bought some additional items for us, but the wife told me that when it’s just the two of them they only eat what they grow and ironically, even though the husband daily makes goat cheese, neither of them eat it. She said one winter they had some variation of potatoes, eggs and nettles (which are a weed) for the entire season.

Weeds and animal death are part of farming, I know, but the observations we made about the marriage and the seeming turn of bad luck in their farming felt like it could be connected to the growing disconnect between them as husband and wife. They hadn’t even been married that many years and it seems like things had been successful at first. But now, not only did they have “his and her” gardens, but also divided their animals, and communication about chores and projects were clearly not streamlined. Again, I’m not a farmer but I am a project manager for many people and can see when tasks are not being done efficiently or effectively. Add interpersonal dynamics and dysfunction on top of that between a two person team that has no community or support and no matter how many sustainable practices you have in place, it’s just not sustainable.

They picked the farm and location based on the price they found. No family or friends nearby. I can’t judge that as someone who chose to move half way across the world with knowing only my husband and not knowing the spoken language. Now that we have kids, I acutely know it takes a village. And since we have no family around, as my friend Lyndsay said, “You have to pay for your village.”

Matt and I have decided that farming is a lot like being an expat. When he was interviewed for the job that brought us to Paris he was asked, “Is your wife on board?” Matt told the interviewer that I was in fact, on board. “I’m not supposed to ask that” she said “but we’ve brought people over and their spouse couldn’t hack living in a foreign country and they haven’t finished out their contract. It’s not good for us or you if both people aren’t fully on board.”

Based on all the questions we asked the farmers over the course of the ten days it felt like it was more his vision that she had chosen to go along with. There was a significant age gap between the two which made for some interesting power dynamics and so many other aspects that I have analyzed in my head for hours. But the point is that the energy of the farm and the buy-in from both of them felt like it was not aligned and therefore, unsustainable.

See why I’ve avoided writing this second half for so long? It’s sort of depressing, even to me as I write it. And I like positivity and hope and uplifting humorous posts!

Not today, Joy.

Look, here’s a humorous video of me getting attacked by a chicken while trying to collect eggs. Will that help?

That helped a little, thanks.

We’ve learned that farming is possible for anyone. You can totally do it if you’re a self made millionaire and can hire your village. You can also do it without hiring people and live off the land if you’re ok in some seasons just eating potatoes in 63 different variations and probably not having a retirement fund.

But if the interest in farming is to get out of the suburbs or the city and let “getting back to nature” make you happy, it probably won’t. The same expat principle we always tell people who want to move to France is from the wise sage, Adam Sandler in the SNL sketch, “Romano Tours” which has Sandler, owner of Romano Tours telling potential customers that Rome won’t make them happy.

Sad you in New Jersey is still sad you in Italy.

Discontent you in America is still discontent you on a three year expat contract in France.

Bad marriage as a CEO is still bad marriage as a FARMER.

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So what did we learn?

That however long we end up being city-dwellers, we personally need to make time for nature and quiet. Manual labor actually makes our body hurt less than when we aren’t doing it and we found we really enjoy the work and rhythms—especially bringing the cows in at night. We have massive respect for farmers who do the same thing every day and produce what we eat, drink and wear. Our kids don’t need to be entertained, they just want to be with us, even if we are weeding. We are grateful that so far in our marriage, we’ve been pretty aligned on what we want to do, and when we aren’t aligned we communicate and work to get on the same page. If we trade metros for mooing cows, we better include a lot more than butter churning and flower picking on our vision board. And if there are ever any dead bodies in our midst, we will dispose of them together.

While I didn’t know where to start in helping the farmers weed their massively overgrown herb garden, my hope and prayer (because I have hope for marriage and I have prayed for them) is that perhaps, maybe I planted a small seed with that letter I wrote. Maybe we were the temporary community they needed, that we all need, when we get stuck in the weeds.

Until the next farm… those are my ponderings and heavy handed metaphors.