The Good, The Bad, And Mother Nature
We lost three goat kids last night. Born into the cold and wet in the dark of the night, between the hours of midnight and six when John checked to make sure all was ok. They likely never had much of a chance in all of that weather, a classic Iowa spring roller coaster of rain and snow and wind engulfing the night.
But John is blaming himself today, feeling bad about not having woken up at two or three or four in the morning right after they were born. He might have saved them if he had been there at just the right time. It’s what you do as a farmer (and in so many other things in life)—try your best and then blame yourself when it is not good enough.
He knows better than to think he can save every animal—he grew up raising cattle and hogs and we have been at this farm endeavor for six years now raising cattle and goats. Even if he checked at 2:00am, they could have been born into the wind and rain at 2:15. But he would feel less responsible, less like it is his fault if he had gone out into crappy weather to see.
Plus, now we are scheduled to leave the farm this coming Saturday, April 6th to do cooking demonstrations at the Iowa Eats Food & Drinks Festival at the Waterloo Convention Center. We are excited by the opportunity to represent the Iowa Farmers Union and to attract new customers to our classes and farm stays. But it is nerve-wracking. Our new employee and co-farmer Jacob will be in charge—a young man we know will do his best to make sure all goes as well, if he can.
It reminds me of what John’s father Leory must have gone through when we showed up in Iowa wanting to farm (a transition I talk about in-depth in my book Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America). He was in his 80s when we moved to Iowa and we had to negotiate a lease with him. One would have thought that an 80-year-old man would be excited by his son returning to take over the farm. Not Leroy. He was apprehensive, reluctant even, to give up control. What if everything went to hell? What if we couldn’t pay the bills?
He was worried we would make bad decisions, that we might, in our ignorance or perhaps negligence, lose the farm. And who could blame him? He was a man who was born right after the Depression and lived through the farm crisis of the 1980s. He still owned the farm in 2019 when we took over the operation, but he’d had to fight for every acre while he farmed. He had seen the worst, and tried to plan for more of it.
There is no avoiding it. Every year—multiple times a year—on a farm you are forcefully reminded you are not in control. Whether we lose calves or kids, our broccoli dies or the rains do not come, we can be surrounded by disappointment—if we view it that way. The world is full of terrible moments and ongoing struggles, and if you focus on it, it will take away any shred of hope for a better future.
Sitting across the table with your strong, resilient husband with tears in his eyes, you try instead to remember the times when things worked out. Like the year John found a newborn calf stuck in a small hole full of water, shivering and barely alive. He carried the calf all the way back to the house and we wrapped it in blankets out in the yard. Over the hours of its recovery, many in the family sat together on the new green grass chatting and cheered when the calf finally got on its feet and galloped around the yard.
Late in the day today, we returned to the farm for our 4-5 times-a-day check and watched anxiously as a mom struggled after her first kid was born. In the end, she ended up with three healthy babes, and we sighed a relief. Mother Nature sure keeps you guessing how it will all turn out.
Want to visit the farm and meet the goats or our grass-finished cattle? Sign up for the Writing Retreat (with baby goats) April 13, or email us to book a tour. You can also stay in our Airbnb Barn House, book a cooking class, or buy our delicious pasture-raised beef.
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Great article.
I grew up on a farm. Looking back now 65 years later, it was a great foundation for the ups and downs in life.
What a lovely essay!!!