The Model Farm

*photo credit goes to Grace on this one

If you ever need a good laugh, it's quite the panic to read those old publications put out by the county extension services that tell you how to have a model farm. They helpfully tell you when to plant your cow peas,  how many jars of pickles you should be canning, what to do when your chickens have chest colds, etc. Let's just be clear about this: the cranky girls are not running the model farm.

This building is a case in point. It used to be a brooder house.  We figured we could do plenty of brooding without devoting an entire building to it, so we made it a playhouse. We gave it some flourishes like windows and a working door. And what do we get for our efforts? Termites.

*this photo from Michael--see his truck reflected in the window!

It's not that we three crankies aspire to be Lisa Douglas from Green Acres. OK, truthfully, Grace could really get into watching someone else "farm" while wearing pearls and kitten- heeled mules with a poof of maribou feathers. The rest of us crankies, however, are stuck being Marthas to her Mary.

Running water, for example, is one of those things that can be a non-event or a big pain in the tush. Sunday, I trekked to the well at 6 a.m. to whack the points on the motor; apparently there was enough moisture to foul up the connection. So you jiggle the housing and voila! (or Viola!, as Uncle Sid says) you have running water again. It's so easy. You can figure out how to make your points work, or you can listen to your children complain that the toilet won't flush. It's completely up to you.

CGF has the whole yin with the yang thing going. You get the stuff that looks like  it's interviewing for Field and Stream:

*look, it's a ring-tailed pheasant!

The stuff that says, yes, Michael Pollan, I have embraced the locavore movement and can grow my own vegetables:

*pumpkin from last fall

And just when you're about to get all high-minded and Wendell Berry about it, reality comes calling in the way of tomato worms, withering heat, and infrastructural challenges:

* These photos from Michael.  Can't remember if this is the hole from his barn or from CGs' barn. Sieger Construction can vouch for the holes in CGs' barn.

Maybe CGF really is in Hooterville, and my part is Ralph, the lady carpenter. 

--MCG