Most of my life, except for a brief period when I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, I have lived on a farm. And even when I lived in the city, I longed for the slowness and quietness of county living.
It’s fall, time to plow the garden, and get the soil ready to plant fall crops: collards, mustard, turnips, cabbages, and rutabagas. It’s also harvesting time for fall apples, pears, and grapes. In nine to ten weeks, the first frost should appear and it will be time to harvest from the fall garden. In the meantime, I will be checking the garden daily and dusting the crops with 7-dust to keep the grasshoppers from eating the collard and cabbage plants. Fall peas will be ready soon, the vines are heavy now with peas ready to fill out, that is, if we get enough of rain and the weather continues to be warm.
So far on the east coast, there have been several hurricanes this season that were downgraded to a tropical storm and brought us much needed rain. We’re currently monitoring another hurricane, Nigel, south of Bermuda. Will this hurricane turn north and bypass us like the previous two? I pray that it does.
With the arrival of Autumn, the outdoors are finally enjoyable and officially our second living and dining room for the next ten to twelve weeks. Any other time, except for a brief month and half from March and April it’s either too hot and muggy, or too cold to be out. And if we’re lucky with nice weather to be outdoors, the mosquitoes and gnats will eat you alive.
As much as I love living in a rural setting, there have been times when I loathed the isolated location of my home. The worst was during the pandemic and still today, sometimes I feel isolated from the outside world because I’m so busy with home and outdoor chores, I don’t make an extra effort to plan for ‘fun’ activities.
As I’ve gotten older, that’s one enjoyment in life I regret not ever getting to enjoy and experience: fun. Work is never done when living on a farm and even if you do ever get caught up, as soon as the season changes, your ‘to do’ list grows a mile long.
Sure, Hollywood movies and TV shows have painted farm life as some luxurious getaway from the noisy, rat-race of the city with front porch sitting, sipping sweet, iced tea or sampling a slice of pound cake, still warm from the oven. Unless you have a maid and farmhands helping, sitting in the porch swing, chilling while the breeze rustles the tree leaves overhead, rarely happens in the real world. Hollywood will not ever be able to properly show to the world you must have a stubbornness lye soap can’t remove, determination embedded to the core of who you are, and a desire, deeper than the well your great granddaddy dug, to endure the harshness of not ever knowing what future battles one season to the next will bring to your doorstep, all because you want to leave a legacy for your kids and grandkids.
No, country living is not for the faint of heart and not for anyone who is afraid of hard work.
Yes, country living is hard and never-ending. For most of us, it’s all we know.