So I am currently re-reading parts of the book entitled The Complete Agrarian Reader, a collection of essays by Agrarians and their opinions on things. Probably the book that first introduced me to the idea. Actually, I should say, that made me realize it was not necessarily a some romantic notion that I alone had, that there were other people with similar thoughts on things.
Anyway, there is an introduction to the book by Barbara Kingsolver. In it she talks about her days in college and in the world at large where she in as many words hesitant or even almost ashamed of her background of having grown up on a Kentucky tobacco farm. Both the tobacco and the farm were considered less then desirable things to bring up in her circles of associations in a positive light so instead she stayed quiet. I have been there with her. I knew exactly what she was talking about. I would never deny, but there were times when I tried to distance myself from my own personal history.
Just as Kingsolver notes, the views and smells, and even the accents take me back every time. My favorites are the deep loamy smells of the freshly deeply turned field, completely with seeing the earthworms that do there own little work to big effect, the sight of a young calf loping and being frisky in the green spring, and the just like Barbara, the smell of a tobacco at harvest and again in a barn during the curing process – just heavenly. It really takes me back.
I admit that I am an information technology guru by trade, but my heart is down on the farm. I spent a few summers not to long ago doing historical interpretation on the farm at Shaker Village. I will admit the pay was less then desirable, but working on the farm with 19th century technology and more importantly teaching a youngster (and even, sadly, adults) where their food comes from was just a wonderful experience.
Guess that a friend of mine, that resides in Tennessee now, kind of sums up how I feel about it. He grew up in a similar way, though not on a tobacco farm, but a family ran farm. His thought goes something like this: Once you have the dirt under your nails of a family farm, at least for people like us, it is hard to get it out of your blood.
** – Originally published on Mephistos on 5th of April, 2008.