I’m a creative, experienced, multi-purpose artist and art director
who can take projects start to finish in a variety of styles.

Good designs sell –
my designs sell out!

Saturday, May 18, 2019

"Farm"

I find it surprising that many people haven't been to a farm.  It used to be a thing that city kids were trundled off to milk a cow.  They brought goats to my elementary school so we could milk them.  I can say with authority that cow and goat teats are different, the milk is different, and goats are delightful playmates.  Cows are a little boring.

There were still a few farms around where I grew up.  Now they're cow-less housing developments, but I remember laying on a tree limb that hung over a pasture.  I waited for a hapless cow to seek shade so I could drop on her back for a wild ride across the field.  Good times.  Cows don't have to be boring.  Nobody was hurt, but it did occur to me the potential existed when I got thrown onto the sh*t filled ground and saw cow feet a bit too close to my head.  I went and petted horses instead.

There was an interesting mix of farming in my childhood domain.  There were orchards and pleasure gardens.  Rich people had tree nurseries for tax write offs and bussed in illegal Mexican workers.  The Sheep Lady had her sheep, obviously.  The Nashes milked the maple trees for syrup.  Sometimes we had to wait for a tractor to painfully roll down the road in front of us.  I learned the advantages of different kinds of manure and could identify it by odor.

Most of the farming ops were small, family businesses.  I thought it was normal to live by food production.  I liked buying home-grown produce at an unattended stand at the end of someone's driveway.  I think all of this should be normal.

The giant cow illo was used
for a brochure for Lake Farmpark,
a demonstration farm that lets
kids pet animals
I used to sell organic produce at the Willoughby Market before anyone cared about organic, but after the farms had sprouted McMansions.  A woman asked me why my potatoes were dirty.  I apologized and said I hadn't had time to clean them.  "How did they get dirty in the first place?" she asked.  I'm sure I had a stupid look on my face.  "Uhh, because I dug them out of the ground?"  The woman laughed.  "I thought potatoes grew on trees!"

Oh my.  That kind of thinking is too far from the farm.  Here's something else you should know about potatoes and other root vegetables -- if you're going to buy anything organic, buy root vegetables.  Chemicals stay in the ground after they're sprayed and concentrate in the food.  By comparison, lettuce gets sprayed but then it rains or the farmer waters it which washes off the plants.  Things we eat that are above ground are less toxic than the root veggies.  You should still wash everything though because who knows how any of our food is handled anymore.

It's midday Saturday as I write this.  I've decided my new policy regarding IF's perpetual tardiness is to just use the word we've got when I'm ready to post.  It beats getting annoyed every week.  Ohhmmmm...

I've weeded my garden and am ready to plant.  The groundhog is ready to wipe out whatever I put in.  I haven't seen the deer lately, but I'm sure they're ready to kill everything too.  I know they're still around because they cropped my lilies.  I've already started bitching about my neighbors' lack of mowing (evidenced in photo below).  The temps were in the 40s this week but tomorrow is supposed to be in the 80s so I can stop complaining about being cold and start complaining about being hot.  In other words, yay for the change of seasons!

11 comments:

  1. Nice post, Linda! I grew up in towns and cities nowhere near a farm, and would have no idea how to milk a cow. Sad, eh? I got a chuckle about the young girl dropping out of a tree onto a cow's back! Good times, indeed.

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  2. Glad to share a chuckle! Milking isn't all that hard to do. It's the feeding and shoveling and every other bit of labor that explains why so many farmers don't farm anymore. Maybe I should've said I also really appreciate grocery stores?

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  3. Ha! So was it a potato tree you were sitting in while waiting for that cow?
    I tried cow tipping once... and learned it's not really a thing.

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  4. Had I heard of cow tipping I'm sure I would've tried it :)

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  5. Potato-trees? I know of a boy who went eating with a host family. The potatoes were off white, their natural colour, but the boy refused eating fresh potatoes because they had a different colour compared to fries.
    We need small farming and local products again. Not only for education, but for another economy that ends abuse of animals on an unimaginable scale. There are more reasons why your childhood memoires of visiting a farm are appealing; we need our children to become environmentalist and they can't become that by reading books. Touching cows, sheep, and playing on a farm instil a lifelong love for a better way of living.

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    1. Linda, I forgot to say that your drawing is lovely. I like how you have exaggerated the size of the cow that gives the viewer a proud look. 'Here is my milk, but be good to me'.

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  6. I currently have some blue potatoes. I wonder if that boy would eat those if they were turned into fries? I absolutely agree with you that kids need to get outside to become environmentalists, and we need them to be environmentalists! Besides, farm animals are nice. Maybe people would eat less factory meat if they petted a cow?

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  7. Good grief! I can't believe that there's a human that doesn't know potatoes are root vegetables. I suppose there were things I didn't always know about city life - Like the fact that skyscrapers are carved from the fossils of the rare, metal plant. Things like that.

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  8. I guess there's a lot for me to learn about city life too :D

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  9. It seems like you had a good time in farm land. I have visited farms, but have to admit that I have never milked a cow or a goat. But I have always known that potatoes grow in the ground. I don't know if that makes for anything...

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