My last post got me thinking about when I was a farmer. Yes, I was indeed a farmer, for four years, during the summer. It was my summer job to work as a farmhand, and I loved every single minute of it. Even though I got really dirty most days, I had to get up early, and endure hot days as well as cold, it was worth it. Farming was my getaway from the real world. There was the outside world, and then there was the farm world.My main job was to pick and plant the vegetables for the farm stand, and to help out with whatever needed to get done. This could be anything from watering plants, mowing the lawn on a large old tractor (which is so much fun I can’t even begin to describe it), or painting the barn. In the four summers I worked there I got pretty good at picking green beans, and caring for the tomatoes. There’s a certain finesse to pruning tomato plants without getting their green glittery residue all over your fingers, and arm, and legs.

It was hard work, but work I loved. Some days would be nice, with a cool breeze, and you’d be the only person out in the fields, no one around for miles. And when there’s no one around except you and the plants, it’s the perfect time to sing along with your walkman (this was before the time of the ipod). I remember days when I would be singing and dancing out in the fields, picking beans or tomatoes, or stringing them up, pruning them, planting lettuce, or weeding the long rows around the cucumbers or zucchini. One day, when I was picking zucchini, I came across a couple of really hideous spiders. They were actually beautiful, in regard to their color, but large and clawlike. So of course, they’re hideous. I hate spiders.

But other than the spiders, the bugs I didn’t mind. I would chase after the grasshoppers and on a good day I might find a frog. And ladybugs were all over the place, as well as crickets. I even found a Praying Mantis one day. He was long and a pale green color (I say he, but I really don’t know if it was a male or female…).

Moments on the farm were serene, peaceful, and everyone on the farm worked together, as a family. We ate lunch together in the old farm house, drinking ice tea mixed with lemonade. And when the corn on the cob came in, we’d often eat that too. I used to eat it raw, right off the stock, as we were picking them. The best corn I’ve ever tasted.

Eating vegetables straight from the ground, from the vine, is the most delicious food you could ever eat. It’s fresh, juicy, ripe. I’d go back to work on the farm any day just to get a chance to pick fresh vegetables again, and to linger among the plants and dirt, the sun on my back, music in my ears, or just the sound of the wind as I walked up and down the long rows, with my hoe in hand, weeding and making sure the plants were taken care of. I’ve never been in better shape than when I was a farmer, or more tan.

I think my eagerness to farm is in my blood. My ancestors on my mother’s side were all farmers, in Missouri. When I was younger I used to visit my great-grandparents who lived on a farm. I can’t say I remember their farm, as I was only about three or four at the time. But I have this desire to farm, to plant things, to make things grow where there was just dirt. I like creating things, so it’s only natural that I’d want to grow things as well.

For my ancestors, farming was a way of life. It wasn’t a choice. It was that or starve. Farming gave you food, helped you maintain the land, even gave you money if you were able to sell the food you grew. I would love to have met my ancestors. I doubt their farms still exist now, and the plants they once grew are probably overgrown and full of weeds by now. Or perhaps there are housing developments on the land. I often wonder what plants they grew. Did they have beans and cukes, beets or spinach? Or maybe carrots and turnips were their thing. Some of my ancestors only grew flowers, and I have an old article about their garden that appeared in one of the newspapers in Missouri a long time ago.

I don’t think I’ll be written up any time soon for my prized garden, as I tend to kill anything I have to bring indoors. Although I do have a hardy Hydrangea plant that keeps coming back each year. It somehow survives the harshness of winter, and blooms brilliantly each summer. I bet if I tried bringing it indoors it would die as all the rest do. I even have a plant at work that sits on my cubicle wall that I have not watered in months. Other people tend to take care of it, so it’s still kicking.

My favorite field to pick in was the potato field, high at the top of a large hill behind the saw mill. It was hidden away, and so secluded. You could see Powow Hill in the distance, and there were some cows and horses up on the hill, meandering about. Just a beautiful place. The wind would always gently blow up on the hill.

Sometimes I wish I still worked on the farm. My sister still does. My mom even worked in the farmstand for a while before I worked there. This is what makes me think that farming really is in our blood. We’ve all been seduced by the dirt, the plants, the sunlight gliinting off the large squash leaves. At the end of a long day at the farm, you are tired, you can’t move, and you’ve got dirt caked underneath your nails. But you worked. You really did something that was important. You didn’t have to answer phones, or look at a computer, or have meetings. Well, you may have meetings, but a meeting on a farm usually takes place on the back of a truck, in the middle of a field, and involves a cold drink and maybe a watermelon.

I can’t say my meetings now are anything like that.