I thought it would be interesting to turn over the blog once a month to someone who has ties to the agricultural field. Today the first in this series is from Emily Odom from Odom Farming Company, which is the farm where my passion to help farmers was developed. Hope you enjoy this post about being a farmer.
What is it like to be a farmer? I’m glad you asked.
It’s praying for rain and praying for it not to rain every day for the rest of your life.
It’s sweating through every price of clothing you own.
It’s working your body until its breaking point and still having to move forward because you have no choice. If you don’t do it nobody else will and it has to be done.
It’s worrying about everything all the time, and just when you get one problem solved ten more come up in its place.
It’s having a dirty house because the farm comes first.
It’s having to defend yourself to the public all the time, meanwhile, they eat what you worked to the bone to provide them.
It’s taking four different types of allergy medicine a day and still getting sick.
It’s relying on your family.
It’s being stereotyped and put in a box. If you’re female it’s being second-guessed and underestimated. If you’re a male it’s being considered ignorant. And Lord help you if you’re a person of color.
It’s being accused of killing the planet when you’re just trying to be a steward of the land.
It’s eating fast food because you were too busy to lay anything out to cook.
It’s watching the cost of everything go up around you while you get paid the same.
It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, and the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do, at the same time.
It’s looking at other people who get to take vacations and go shopping together on Saturdays and wonder what that must be like.
It’s being covered in mud.
It’s seeing people buy boats and second houses while you buy more animals and seeds.
It’s watching something you built with your own blood, sweat, and tears grow.
It’s laughing because if you don’t you’ll fall apart.
It’s wanting to sign your kids up for teams and dance but how are you going to get them there when it’s your busy season?
It’s never being able to commit to going to anything. Well maybe if it rains…
It’s scheduling your life to have your kids in the off-season.
It’s learning to be really good at winging it.
It’s being a ringmaster.
It’s watching sunrises and sunsets and being immersed in the wondrous beauty of nature.
It’s nursing a goat back to life and watching one die.
It’s checking your weather app every five minutes and knowing when the tropical update is coming out.
It’s never being able to go to a piece of equipment and just crank it.
It’s amazing. It can kill you.
It is so many things. It’s not the life I imagined for myself growing up. Even now I think about all the money we’d have and time we’d have and the life we could have had if we didn’t farm. Then I think about all of the things we have because we do. We have this beautiful land. We have kids who know about hard work and I couldn’t be prouder of them. We have a chance to share this with other people and teach them. We have a shared experience as a family that brings us closer together. We have so much, other people don’t have because we farm and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
[…] at a local agritourism farm and felt led to tell the “real” story of farming. After one year of working and becoming best friends with the farmer I was working for, I felt that the story of the small farmers needed to be told. But I wasn’t […]