farm raised

the united states

Munching on an oatmeal raisin cookie, I waited for a waitress to bring out my fish fry from my mom in the kitchen. I sat amongst local farmers like this, eating oatmeal raisin cookies, most of the summer… most of every summer, snow day, and teacher work day, actually. While my mom prepared their lunches, I probably should have been washing the dishes or helping her to plate the food, but instead, I gnawed on a cookie and listened carefully. Mr. Turek lamented that the corn wasn’t knee-high yet, and it was already mid-July. I gathered this would mean a later or less fruitful harvest. While I never could nail down which of “the Pumpkin Patch Boys” was Tyrone and which was his brother, Brian, I knew that they wanted three peanut butter cookies and unsweet tea, no ice. I also knew that their fertilizer was nutrient deficient the summer that I was nine.

As the summers passed and I spent more time working in the restaurant, I learned when the weather was helping and when it was hurting. I felt the pain of a week of rain at the wrong time for planting and the joy of rain when it was needed most. I got updates on cows with uterine prolapses while Dan McGarr guzzled down a cup of soup and his son-in-law requested extra barbecue sauce for his french fries.

Through injuries and accidents, bad weather, bad harvests, and bad luck, I watched agricultural competitors pick each other up, sharing their cookies and advice for over two decades. Contrary to the media portrayal of farmers as cruel and eager for profit, the legacies of my neighbors and friends are ones of quiet strength and reverence for the land and animals.