The following is a short essay I wrote in my favorite class at Iowa State: Advanced Agricultural Communications.
It’s in all of us. That feeling you have when you feel a sense of belonging to a
place that you can always return to. As humans we long for a sense of peace, comfort, and solitude and within our existence, are lucky to find it. Farmers find it early in life and though they are hard workers who take profound care of animals and crops on the farm, there’s more to farms than what meets the eye. I wish people knew that my family farm is more than a farm.
Hillcrest Farms sits atop one of the gently rolling hills of southwestern Iowa. Here is where I was born and raised. At the age of two months old, I owned my first pig and though I had won it at a sale, she was mine. Eight years old is when I had to take Piggy to market. I still remember the feeling I had as she boarded the trailer, never to return to home. She had produced over 16 litters averaging 11 piglets per litter for Hillcrest Farms. Although I was heartbroken to let her go, I knew it was okay. Growing up, I came to understand what the circle of life was at a young age. Everything lives and everything dies, but death with a purpose gives full meaning to life. I wish people could better understand that is how farmers think each year when they plant the next crop and birth the next group of animals. I wish people knew that and maybe they would have a better understanding of life itself.
I wish people knew how grounded the family is to their farms. I never liked wearing shoes. The older I grew, the more I realized I was simply grounding myself to the world I had around me. Farmers do this as well. Each spring they are prepping the land, feeling the soil’s structure and tilth to determine the proper date to plant. In the fall, farmers are quick to grab a handful of their hard earned labor of golden kernels and smooth soybeans simply coming from their grounded world. With all the time and care they put in the land, farmers are only want to better what they truly care about.
Farmers are not only grounded to the nature surrounding them, but to animals as well. I’ll never forget the two weeks my family and I had with a newborn colt. We grew to love the newest member on the farm with big hopes and adorations for his future only to watch it suddenly past. Its grief like this that my family has had that keeps us grounded to our animals.
I wish people knew how much the farm really teaches a farm kid. If Hillcrest
Farms didn’t exist today, I don’t know who I would be. It has shaped me, built me, and will always be a part of me. The farm has allowed me to learn my true passions outside of the classroom. Every kid needs an opportunity at that. Everything I’ve ever learned came from the farm from nailing a nail to a deeper meaning of life. It gave me a connection with my brothers that only we share. I have memories etched in my memory of waking up in the middle of the night with the boys to care for newborn lambs together. That’s what farm families do. They help each other and are there for each other to make the farm the best it can possibly be.
I wish people knew that to families, a farm is everything. From their well being to
the only place they’ll ever call home. A farm produces anything in the world a person wants, but to a farm family, the farm itself is the only thing they need.
Homesteading the Soul 