As a child I heard my mother complain about what life was like growing up on a dairy. Not that I believe she and her sisters had to work much on the farm, but they did not appreciate the smell of the cows and the long hours her parents worked. I felt the same way about our plant nursery. I hated getting up on a summer morning and being dragged to some yard in the damp heat to make cuttings.
But then, as I have written before many times, a flip switched and just as my mother now likes to tell sweet stories of growing up on their farm climbing in the tongue nut trees and romping the fields, I love the memories of climbing on the huge mounds of potting soil and peat moss. I love thinking back to the mornings sitting around in a huddle with the older ladies who sat stripping the cuttings and sticking them into liners. I was of no help whatsoever. I likely got into the way more than I contributed, but I now enjoy the memories.
And that is why I believe that bit of my childhood has manifested itself in me to become what I have become - The Pointless Farmer. I love working tirelessly in my garden beds. I mix soil, and plant seeds. I nourish them with homemade compost tea. I celebrate the sprouts with the grandchildren and share them lovingly with the multitude of rabbits who have moved into my three-acre yard. They burrow beneath the massive azalea bushes and have a feast chewing them down to the nub.
And the rabbits are not alone. We have occasional deer and my newest neighbors, moles. The twenty-four-year-old cat had done an excellent job keeping them at bay, but she also did the same job with baby birds that now flutter from tree to tree sharing their bird feed with the invasive squirrels. I spend hours planting in my flowerbeds only to create the perfect home for weeds, vines, and tiny oaks.
I had bought an extra chicken coop for my son who raises chickens, but when I found out he was about to kill some of them for dumplings because they were no longer laying, I decided I needed to put that coop on my property for the soon to be dead birds. He explained to me that was defeating the purpose, but I quickly found the excuse they could make chicken poop to go in my garden to fertilize better.
This makes perfect sense. I will now buy bird feed and chicken feed to feed the chickens to poop in their coop to fertilize the gardens the rabbits and deer will eat and the raccoons will dig up. One of the topics in my master gardener class is about building a healthy habitat which I have succeeded in doing. It is the most productive, fertile, pointless gardening system that requires around the clock watering, weeding, digging, and pampering.
And I love it. There are more and more articles and social media posts about living life off the grid. Being able to sustain such a system that is absolutely sustaining life is the goal.
And I can honestly say that every living creature in my yard lives completely off the grid. I work long hours providing this for them. I guess if times really got tough these non-laying chickens and fat almost tame rabbits would instantly become a food source. But until then, being the pointless farmer holds its own reward.
