The Business of the Farm

I knew that farming wasn’t like anything we had done before.  I had read the stories, the books, the blogs.  I came in to this expecting, nay wanting something different.

The timelines are longer yet slower, continuous but cyclical, and strenuous and relaxing all at the same time.  But what I truly didn’t expect was the business aspect of farming.  It’s surprisingly like every other business I have begun or worked.  The same records must be kept, the same conscious thought towards the bottom line, the same movement towards the biggest benefit for the least amount of work.  It’s so much like business that the term agribusiness seems much more applicable sometimes than agriculture.

And yet, beyond the business aspects of farming, there is an intrinsic benefit that the farmer receives from his or her work that cannot be quantified in terms of money or time.  I see it every time my wife sighs contentedly after spending a day in the barns, wrestling with crias.  I feel it every time I sit down after a long day of shoveling hay and manure (of all things).  I see it in my kids’ sleepy eyes as they attempt to stay awake in the back of the truck on our long drive home. 

The simple fact that we work with our hands and our bodies much more than our minds leaves us tired but content at the end of the day.  Spicing our days afield are the stolen moments when we look up from what we are doing and take in the simple beauty of a farm and the countryside.  In contrast, after a long day working at our “day jobs” my wife and I can’t help feel harried and stressed as we try to cram time in for the kids, a meal, and all the various little jobs that keep a house running into the few hours we have between coming home and going to bed.

Our time on the farm and our hard work there has led us to feel less contented with our urban life and to look forward to our short rural weekends more and more.  I guess that’s the point.