WIP

Far from perfect

How’s the farm, Dana? Everything good?

I know the answer you want. Yes. It’s great. But, I can’t get those words out. Because even though you want me to, I want you to know the truth. At least part of it.

Let’s review. Idyllic green pastures. At least 64 shades of green. A perfectly straight fence line. Not like the other wobbly one I had when I started. And views of valleys with hidden dips only the fog can define. Yes. The answer is yes. Everything is good.

I took a walk on an ungroomed trail, thigh-high with weeds, ticks grabbing at the jeans I had tucked into my socks. Gulleys made to look level, laying in wait for the unsteady, the unsuspecting step. I passed a small grove of huddling Aspens shimmying their oversized sequin-like leaves in the breeze that is constant here. And there, wildflowers. Dancing. Yes.

It is here that dandelions and buttercups and all the weeds you pull from your garden are the main attraction. They are the big league here. Mutts. Native. Invasive. All woven together in an impenetrable matt. Yes.

In the barnyard, you’d think with all the work and all the love that it’d be perfect too. Or at least good. And it is, as long as you define perfect and good as a work in progress. With glitches and schmurgles intertwined in a morass of life and living and aging. Do you?

The goats are itchy. They rub their fat bodies on the fences that bulge outward with a perfect impression of their bellies. The fence man didn’t believe me when I told him certain sections needed structural reinforcing from the certain pressure of goat shedding and itching.

“Of course he didn’t.” says Carl, my friend and neighbor who you may already know from listening to the Accidental Farm Podcast. He’s a fixture here. As in he visits me two or more times a day, every day. It’s not for everyone (he yells my name through the mudroom door sending the dog into a frenzy, except not any more because he’s gone deaf at age 13), but Carl’s consistency is comforting to me.

“You’re a woman. What do you know?” he says smiling on one side. He knows I know. And he knows that’s what they think too, when they dismiss my requests. The fence broke at the bulge this spring. Carl shook his head. “Typical.” he said. I wove it with a bungee cord from wire to post in a custom barnyard macrame. So, yes. Perfect. At least the goats can’t squeeze their fatness through there now. But they did. To get to the special weeds in the forest — the acid-green ones with the fingered leaves — that they were craving.

When I say itchy, I mean scaly and bumpy and shedding to bare patches. Even with black oil sunflower seeds, flax meal supplements, zinc-based pasty cream for diaper rash (you know the one), diatomaceous earth and anti-fungal powders and soothing sprays. Mama goat, who is at least 16, is the worst now with a flaky mohawk down her back. You’d take one look and be certain I don’t care for her. And I wouldn’t blame you. Her daughters, Henri and Echo, aren’t much better off. Henri, who led the charge at being itchy and scary looking a month ago, limps a little from a perpetual hoof issue. Epsom salts. Red Kote spray that makes her look like she’s been shot. Echo, who’s itchy but not scaly, appears pregnant, her belly bulging absurdly on both sides and her udder enlarged to four times that of the others’. The vet says she might have this or that hormonal imbalance. But she’s a goat. Just a goat, he says. Country life can be like this.

Let’s go back to the perfect fence line that leads your eyes away from the shedding in the barnyard, the fighting ducks, the scraggly chickens, the donkeys who grow a bit too chubby on the lush grasses of summer, never to shed the weight. This is what perfect looks like. Yes, it’s all good here. Good is a WIP. Good (such a basic word, so bland) is best at its most complex. Good is how life is. The downs making the ups more pronounced, more obvious. Yes.

Welcome to this WIP. I invite you to be a part of it. You can use it as a lens to examine your own good. Your own WIP. I am sure some of your stalls could be a little bit cleaner too. And that’s good.

xo, fg

---

A note about this Substack, in case you are wondering why it’s here and how whatever it is I am doing fits together (another WIP):

Some people, like you, prefer to read stories about the Accidental Farm. This is where they will be for now. They used to be on a blog on my website, but meh. I have also shared them on Instagram. But now, also meh. I am moving them here. Just words.

I will continue to share photos and videos on Instagram from time to time if you need pictures to go with your words.

I also share stories on two podcasts:

1. The Accidental Farm Podcast is 5-minutes a day when it’s in season. The first season has 100 episodes. You will hear about Carl there and other furry and feathered characters too. Another season is coming, soon.

2. The Talk Farm to Me podcast is a longer, interview-based podcast where I share stories from serious farmers about their work and their lives with insights you can’t glean from chatting with them at the farmer’s market.

With all of these stories, I invite you to be “for farmers” in your daily actions, your hearts and am working toward building a community of US to show how we are for THEM in a way that makes them feel seen, heard and appreciated. More on this soon.

And a confession. I have a manifesto. It might tie all this together for you, or for me. For now it does. I will share it with you soon. Because I have a lot to share and I want to leave you in a wee bit of suspense… and maybe thinking about what your own manifesto might be, no matter how cheesy that sounds to you right now. xo