Being a Farmer

I went to a private school in Indianapolis - where most of the kids whose parents owned banks - or huge construction firms - or had houses next to the Pacers and Colts went to school. It was suburban... but there was always a part of me that liked the dirt - putting my hands in and watching things grow. We had a bitty garden growing up where Mom planted carrots and radishes and some tomatoes. ( I digress and say that I put up the tomatoes you brought me, Mom, and they made a lovely aromatic sauce - nothing beats homemade tomato sauce)

I am a Gemini - and though I don't put a lot of credence in astrology - I definitely have two personas inside - the well educated, well bred one that likes fine jewelry and nice things and is madly in love with every advertisement from Coldwater Creek...and the other one, the Earth Mother who went to Kroger with wet hair braided in cargo shorts and a tie dye shirt Sunday afternoon to pick up groceries and wheat straw. The dichotomy is tough to reconcile - as I sit in my silk shirt and heels, checking my dark pink nails to make sure the polish isn't chipped from feeding and watering the ducks last night before I go into a patient room.

I found Yahoo! Groups of late - and joined one for Wholisic goats (natural therapies) and also one for Organic Homestead Farmers. I have learned a lot and am finding definition for who/what category I fit in. In reading the posts, I guess that is what we are, homestead farmers. I have a "goat garden" - for cold weather there are cabbages, turnips, chives, parsley and some spinach planted to help feed them through the winter. Rabbits to provide fertilizer ( and cuteness) to the garden, goats to help tame the weeds and maybe provide milk, ducks for tick and mosquito control - and eggs in a month or so, Kitten Bob who will help with those water bugs and the mice in the attic, and Matilda (who has decided the baby goat, Ringo, is her baby as evidenced by breaking into his pen yesterday to lick him nearly to death) yes, Matilda who has shown her Australian Shepherd genes by beign able to birng escaped goats back to us without ever showing a fang.

The picture up above is Navajo - mother earth and father sky- my friends gave me this sandpainting when I left the reservation... maybe they knew already who and what I was. It hangs in our bedroom.

Funny that it is not the life in envisioned back in college - or high school - or even ten years ago.

But it is a good life, and a healthy life and on most days it just doesn't get any better. The weather is winter now, so tonight we are cooking up brats - beer and smoked - and some brown rice pasta slathered in butter and olive oil...maybe some cauliflower and broccoli - finished off with an apple pear crisp...

Yep, it's a good life.