Agrarian Domesticity

By Shannon Hayes
June 3, 2008

“Farmers are the new rock stars.” That’s the word in the papers and on the street. Chefs slip us their business cards, customers bring their children to meet us. Reporters schedule interviews six weeks out. As our nation trembles under the burdens of climate change, credit card debt, home foreclosures and fuel costs, farmers are ‘the new cool.’ We exist in harmony with the earth, grow our own food, live within our means, don’t try to earn the big bucks, and we’re keeping the local economies alive. So the next generation digs us. Heck. They dig more than us. They dig our compost and our potatoes, too. After years of lamenting “there’s no good help anywhere,” bright, enthusiastic, hard-working twenty-somethings are breaking down our fences for a chance to learn to be a farmer. It’s a good thing, too. In a recent article, farmer and Food and Society Policy Fellow Zoe Bradbury reminds us that farmers comprise 1.6 percent of the U.S. population right now; and less than 6 percent of us are under the age of 35. We seriously need young folks to take an interest in our work.

Within weeks on our land, these kids are evaluating pasture, doing chores, milking, building shelters, pounding fence posts, boning out pork butts and castrating livestock. They walk shoulder-to-shoulder with my dad in the fields, growing strong, confident and capable. Meanwhile, I, his daughter, after 30 years on the land, share few of their skills. I don’t know the chore routine by heart, I’m lousy with a hammer, its been ages since I’ve castrated anything.

Growing up, my brother was directed to feed the sheep after school. My job was to tend the chickens and wash the dishes from breakfast. On weekends, he helped trim hooves and de-worm the flock. I learned how to speed-clean. While I did a share of pitching manure, wrestling livestock and stringing fence, there was a definite division of labor along gender lines.

As a teenager, unsure whether I was too fragile or too incapable to do “the real farm work,” I directed my attention instead to learning to cook pork chops so they didn’t dry out. I took elderly farm neighbors to the grocery store and to their doctors’ appointments. I helped in their gardens, scavenged for wild blackberries, then stood in the kitchen to make jam.

Today we have as many female interns come to the farm as male. They work in harmony with my folks, all equals in strength and skill. I hold a share in the family business and invest many hours into its well-being, but I still don’t share the intern’s skills with the livestock. Should I call myself a farmer?

Perhaps the division of labor while growing up was an expression of the innocent sexism that existed within the old farm culture. Maybe it was a personal choice regarding how I contributed to the family. Either way, today I am not exactly a farmer. I prefer to think of myself as a Commanding Officer of Agrarian Domesticity (a.k.a. “farm wife”). And while the twenty-somethings are signing up for university sustainable agriculture courses and applying for internships to become farmers; I wonder how long it will take them to learn the skills they need not just to work the land, but to run a farm as a way of life. If farmers are the rock stars out in the fields, then we Commanding Officers are more like the drummers, base players, back-up vocalists, agents, and business managers. We keep the music going at a steady beat using a set of skills that are nearly obsolete in this culture. If anyone out there is interested in a Commanding Officer internship, below is a job description:

Job Title: Assistant to the Commanding Officer of Agrarian Domesticity

Description:
Gain valuable experience putting the “quality” into a quality of life. Learn to complete a series of daily tasks essential to maintaining your family farm as a home and business*:

• Review bank statements, medical, fuel and feed bills for accuracy; maintain precise paper trails when discrepancies must be disputed. Develop communication skills to argue effectively in person, on paper or over the phone. Learn to do so tactfully, because these folks might be neighbors or cousins.
• Monitor the family budget and expenses, know where to stash money for a rainy day and how to negotiate with farmers to keep business expenditures in line.
• Identify socialization and learning opportunities for farm children or grandchildren that minimize expenditure of cash and gasoline. Protect non-farm playmates from typical agricultural hazards: protective sows, aggressive rams, guard dogs, watering holes, electric fences, rusty nails, etc.
• Cultivate relationships with benefactors of high-quality hand-me-down clothing.
• Befriend thrift shop operators; train them to identify and hold items you feel the family could use.
• Generate a hot meal using fresh, local and seasonal ingredients for the family, other farm interns, and any extra help that happens to be present. Be prepared to generate additional meals for individuals the farmer invites in at the last minute, including neighbors, friends, family members or customers who drop by at meal time. Afterward, clear the table, wash dishes, store food, identify creative ways to make use of leftovers. Repeat every four hours.
• Secure learning materials for school-age children or grandchildren, find time for instruction if home-schooled.
• Change diapers, do laundry, pay bills, check in on neighbors, particularly the elderly and infirm.
• Oversee family bath time, story time, and bedtime, then pick up any toys, wipe down the kitchen and bathroom, tidy the house.
• Maintain a feeling of serenity and welcome throughout the home and business at all times.

In addition to daily chores, the intern can participate in myriad seasonal and weekly activities including:

• sewing patches on Carhartts and refastening buttons on flannel shirts;
• bringing farm products to market;
• pickling, canning, freezing and lacto-fermenting enough fruits and vegetables to last through the winter;
  
• rendering animal fats for lard and tallow; making soaps;
• identifying other farmers with whom to barter for essential items such as maple syrup, honey or cheese;
• coordinating trips to town for supplies to minimize fuel costs;
• weeding the vegetable patch;
• nurturing new customers and seeking new markets;
• stepping in to assist in any duties the farmer may need help accomplishing; such as setting up the brooder, killing chickens, mowing hay, loading cattle, and on occasion, performing castrations.

Hours are flexible. Typical work days are about 12-14 hours, six days per week, you decide which hours to work. Only 8 hours required on Sundays. Come be a part of something great. This is work you will truly love. With more folks like you, we can generate great food, live within our means, create vibrant communities, raise joyful children, enjoy happy marriages, heal the planet and build a secure, sustainable future. Without you, the beat can’t go on. All applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis.

* Once you’ve mastered the above skills, please be sure and teach me.

Shannon Hayes is the host of grassfedcooking.com and the author of The Farmer and the Grill and The Grassfed Gourmet. She works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Upstate New York. Her newest book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, is due out in September 2009.