07/05/2024
"Early on in my farming career, a farmer mom insisted Jake and I start planning for how we'd keep me relevant once kids entered the picture. I didn't see how I could possibly become irrelevant. I WAS the farm. At least half of it anyway. And it would be fine. We'd send the kid(s) to daycare and I'd keep farming as usual. No problem. And while we now do technically have daycare for both kids...it's never consistent. They take vacations, or holidays (cough, 4th of July) and yes we have grandparents to step in, but not always. And our baby isn't into bottles, so my body is still needed at least every 2-3 hours. And kids take a long time to get ready for their days, so when our farm day starts at 7am, our toddler is fully engaged in building a train track but also needs to eat breakfast and get out the door and oops the baby just spit up all over outfit number two of the morning.....I'm the default parent. And Jake leads the crew. The natural division of work now is Jake in the field and me in the house. I can still farm from my desk, at nap times and in quiet moments, because someone still needs to write the checks and order the parts for the broken things...and it's my body that's tethered to parenthood. At least for now.
I'm trying *so hard* to enjoy it. To appreciate the privilege of childcare and grandparent support and the ability to leave the farm work to our crew and to be able to spend real, quality time with my babies. But damn if it isn't hard to watch it all happen without me. So here are some photos of my field walk today. Where I kept myself in the loop, answered questions in person, observed and documented, then strolled back home when the whimpers coming from the stroller turned too insistent to ignore. I think, so far, we've heeded that long ago warning. I'm not ever-present, but I'm not irrelevant. I still AM this farm. It's just shared a few more ways these days."
— Taylor of , growing in central Vermont. 👩🏼🌾🌱
