For about 6 months a year the Alpacas get a shot which lessens the risk of developing a deadly disease from a meningeal worm. No big deal, right? Yeah, until you’ve been spat upon or kicked by an unhappy alpaca. I remember as a kid we used say, “he hocked a loogie.” Never really knew what that meant until I was spat upon by a camelid. The have multiple stomachs and let me tell you, when they bring it up, it is from down deep and it really smells atrocious.
This is my day off from my real job as a urologist. So, I get to play farmer. It’s fall and there are many things to be done. This morning, other than shot day, I planted my elephant garlic for next year and finally took revenge upon the opportunistic trees, brambles, stickers, wild raspberries and the like that invade my fence lines. The trash cherries grow everywhere around here and before you know it, they are a couple of inches in diameter. Veni, vidi, vici. I came, I saw and I pruned their pointy little stems. The goats are thrilled. They’ve been munching all morning on the pruned branches and brambles. They even eat the stuff with the thorns. I am constantly amazed by what a goat will eat.
One of the really great things about owning a farm is your neighbors. Slide your zero turn into a river because the ground is soft and tilted and someone will be there to help pull you out. They are courteous enough to ask if they can take a picture of your 6K lawn mower on its side in a river. FWIW, that was our first year hear in 2014. Now when I do something incredibly dumb, I can typically extract myself from the problem.
It’s a very different life living in rural America. I’ve learned so much over the last decade by homesteading. We’ve always had gardens and grew some veggies, but this is a different level. And I do it for fun. Ultimate props to the families that do this for a living. You want to know why so many farm families are religious? When your life is so often ruled by the weather you learn to pray with real meaning. There is a prayer in my religion where we ask G-d for rain, “in its time.” Now when I say that prayer, I know what it means. You absolutely must have rain. But get it too late or too early and your crop suffers. When your crop suffers, your family suffers. I’m very fortunate. I do this for love of nature and love of growing. If I don’t get one tomato next year, I won’t have to worry about feeding my family. When your life depends on the corn, soy, or wheat crop it does. Farm life is hard, but rewarding. You live with the land. You live with the deer and the owls, the peeper frogs in the spring and the starlings in the fall. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
