Farm Life, and Memories...

 

Another find I didn't know I still had--carbon copies of dozens of articles written in the 70s, our farm years, in the hope of earning part of our living from my writing. Some of it is tripe--trying for a "voice" that might appeal to the then-market of back-to-the-land hippie types, going for "down-home common folk"...what my dad would have called a "shit-kickin' country girl"--and a little of it is damn good. Not fakey, not fooling anybody either, not trying to be someone I wasn't...more like the honest farm diary I never actually kept.

But I guess I did. I had just hoped to share it with a larger audience.

 Almost none of it reached publication. A few articles in the Mother Earth News, a few accepted by but never published in Natural Lifestyles and other alternative publications. (Some published but never paid for, another source of anxiety. I remember all too well those long walks to the mailbox, hoping against hope for that promised $30 check...and the long walk back, in tears of frustration. We were more broke than I ever hope to be again...)

Reading one written during our third winter brought a different kind of tears to my eyes--we were exhausted but learning what farm life is really like. HARD. Demanding. Responsible. Beautiful. Eternal. Deeply satisfying.

And the writing is pretty good, too.

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This showed up in my Facebook memories today...and I thought I'd share.  Life.  That's what this blog is about, really...