Saturday, July 05, 2008

Only Animal Farmers Are Real Farmers

That's a bold claim, sure to tick off all the grain and fiber producers, but read this post from the Life of a Farm blog and you may understand. As he says: " Thing is the chickens don’t take days off."

(He's under contract to raise layers and finding it more work and more tedious than he anticipated. He also complains about the lack of help, neighbors who cheat SSI, and the possible need for immigrant labor.)

As I say, a dairy or poultry farmer is the only real farmer, because animals will drive you to drink. You may work 18 hours a day planting or harvesting grain, but it's not every day. You can get away. Caring for dairy cows or poultry is a job 365 days in a year, with no breaks, no vacation, always chained to the schedule of feeding and watering, milking and collecting eggs. If any farmer writes about traveling or camping, be assured they're either not a real farmer by my lights or they have some gullible relatives.

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