Family dynamics are hard to begin with. Then throw in a family business. And this family business is a farm.
We’d been up to check and water the cows at their summer range. We stopped at the Pilgrim Market for a gallon of ice cream, at the kids' request. I waited in the truck with the dog. They came out with a gallon of ice cream, a half-gallon of praline and caramel (for me ostensibly), a sleeve of Oreos, and a pint of root beer. Clearly, it hadn’t been a hard few days for all of us.
On the way to our house, we spotted my brother, sister-in-law and mom setting siphon tubes on the alfalfa field by the highway. Craig told me to stop and said he would help them. I was inclined to drive by when I saw my dad’s truck, but I pulled into the neighbor’s drive and got out anyway. There is a deal of tension in the family that may never be resolved, but one ought to try. My dad was just leaving for the shop to pick up more siphon tubes – it bought me time to set my resolve and modulate my bubbling emotions.
The day before, there had been a blowup aimed, well, primarily at my husband and me. It was the kind of blowup that had nothing to do with equipment, not in the physical sense. And, unfortunately, this isn't unusual in a family that wears emotions like clothing. And it seems this one had been bubbling for nearly 13 years – and finally came to a head in the last 13 months.
I know I’m being cryptic, but one doesn’t need to know the details to imagine how it feels.
Since I started writing this blog (it’s been nearly six years), I’ve written a lot about what it means to start a farming operation from scratch – hundreds of miles away from family support. We bought cows and old equipment and junk off Craigslist. We borrowed equipment and relied on neighbors and friends. It was so hard. But this, this farming with your family – it is harder.
In 2022, we left the farm we’d taken a decade to work up to. Not because it was unsuccessful, but because we had an opportunity to be part of that quintessential farming dream – to live near and to farm with family. To farm with my family. To farm with my dad.
After the blowup, I was ready to call our real estate agent and get a for-sale sign on the highway. This communal farm-family living is not my cup of tea anyway. Craig was more circumspect. Yet, the next morning he was resolved. When the cows come off the summer range, we will sell down to just what we can manage in our place. We’d have to buy hay and maybe borrow equipment (not from the family). But we’ve done it and could do it again. "With my parents as neighbors?" I asked. My siblings down the road and across the street? It’s not that easy.
In the field that evening, with praline ice cream melting in the truck, my arms shoulder-deep in dirty ditch water, I joked with my little brother, and my sister-in-law told me about her friend who had visited for the weekend. Our cow dog splashed in the water and then rolled in the mud. She shook it all over our eldest daughter. We all laughed together.
I’m not over it. Not hardly. But for a moment, in that field, completing the monotonous and strangely difficult task of flood irrigating with siphon tubes, I felt the boon companionship of my family. How hard is a family farm? Well, at least this hard.
