Rancher,farmer, homesteader, urban homesteader, backyard chicken enthusiast, gardner,agriculturalist, agronomist, breeder, clodhopper, cob, country person, cropper, cultivator, feeder, gardener, gleaner, grazer, grower, harvester, hired hand,horticulturist, laborer, peasant, planter, plower, producer,reaper, sharecropper, sower, tender, tiller.

No matter how you say it, it is hard work, but reaps great rewards.

I spent many years trying to climb the corporate ladder. I had moderate success, but never was truly happy.My business associates could never “GET IT”, why I wouldn’t move to the city, and quit having to commute over 45 minutes one way to my office. My commute consisted of a few state highways, but then miles of interstate, rolling out in front of me…….. Then there was the bridge……

Southern Indiana is separated from Kentucky ( where my office was) by the mighty Ohio river. Now normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but the Ohio River in our area has two bridges, and aprox. one million people trying to cross them to get to work every day.

On more than one occasion, I would sit in spitting distance to the bridge, but couldn’t get across it because of a wreck, right smack dab in the middle of it. I would be frantically dialing my boss telling her I would be at the meeting as soon as they moved the flaming 18 wheeler out of the way, so I could squeek past it! Finallly squeeling into the parking garage into a parking space, and then the mad dash to the conference room, for another sales meeting!

I couldn’t wait till the weekend to get back to the house. My little 3 acres nestled in the middle of my families farm.Almost on a daily basis, I have deer, wild turkeys, hawks, squirrels, and a multitude of song birds in my yard. And the peace and quiet, the serenity, was like a tranquilizer to my poor aching soul.

Now I have added six chickens, and gearing up for goats this spring, and who knows after that. Each animal with their own personality, each loving me (yes, chickens have feelings too)
all unconditional, well maybe on the condition that you feed them! But each one not caring how many new accounts I get this week,or how many award winning commercials I wrote in the past few years.

So now matter what you call it, farming, homesteading, clodhopping, it’s a wonderful life, any way you word it, and after all, what’s in a word?

1 COMMENT

  1. Great post! I agree that some people just don’t “get it”. Even in the mostly rural area where I live, there are those (townies and suburbanites) who seem to view those of us who homestead as acting out some kind of quaint hobby versus an effort to live a life that makes sense to us. There are those of us who do not view it as progress to want a Target to move into town on virgin land or for some developer to build condos on the old tobacco farm down the road. Thanks for sharing your experience!

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