Self generated #3 Farming in Kentucky

   We watched a life altering movie in English class, Food Inc. The movie was thought provoking and removed the veil that some people have over the whole food industry. I grew up near Louisville, Kentucky. Said another way, I had my early life experiences in a rural area named Fairdale. As a child, I would visit my grandparents, Vard and Shirley Duff, in a small town called Wax, Kentucky. It is on Nolin Lake, one of the most beautiful spots in a very pretty state. The rolling pasture lands are a vivid shade of green that is seen nowhere else. As the wind blows across the grass, it has a sheen of dark teal. The pastures look like wind blowing over a vast lake, with waves of grass in place of  water. Occasionally bedrock will peek through the  grass, like the bones of the Earth were showing. The white plank fences march down the dales as the horses thunder across the field, their coats shining like a new pennies. Heads and tails raised high, in joyous motion, racing one another for the pure sensation of having the wind in their manes.

Kentucky Bluegrass

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    My grandparents had a farm and raised vegetables in a garden by the house and chickens and cows in the pasture. That's how we (the natives) say grew. We never heard anyone say they "grew" anything, they raised it. That applied to everything: children, animals and crops. They had several cows that were used for milking. The pasteurized milk bought in stores bears little resemblance to the rich, creamy raw milk that I have tasted. Grandpa would be milking the cows and we four little girls would run into the barn so he could squirt some in our open mouths. Warm milk, raw, just made, from the cow. Sometime he would miss and the milk would trickle down our chins. It was a game to us but I'm sure to Grandpa, it was hard work. As we got older, he taught us to milk a particular, gentle cow named Bessie. I know we didn't do a good job, but she didn't mind. She was glad to get rid of the weight of the milk. She would stand very still as we ineptly tried to milk her. Grandpa would take over, lightly running his hand down her fawn colored flank, and she would give a soft moo as if to say, "Thank you." I loved all the animals there, but Bessie was special to me. The barn cat was a rangy character, he always brought Grandpa a freshly killed mouse. It was as if the was paying rent for his home, the barn. He was sleek, slender and the color of a thunderstorm cloud. When we tried to pet him, it was like he knew just how long our arms were, and stayed barely beyond our reach. We asked what his name was and Grandpa replied," Cat." We started to call him Kitty, even though he had seen more than a few summers. He earned his keep by making sure that any mouse or snake would meet their maker soon after they met him. I saw him drag a emerald colored snake into the barn. It was twice as long as he was and the scales of the snake's skin glistened and sparkled in the late afternoon sun.  He laid it gently down at Grandpa's feet and peered up as if to say, "Look what I found." He then turned and walked out of the barn and  jumped on the fence to scan the pasture. He was ever vigilant in keeping his place in the barn safe.

  One summer we went to visit Grandpa and Granny. At dinner the first night we arrived we had roast beef. Yes, it was Bessie. I didn't eat meat that night. I cried instead. I couldn't eat my friend, Bessie. When your dinner has a name, it makes it hard to enjoy it.
    My aunts, Charlene and Ima Dean would go to the hen house if we were to have chicken that night. We would watch as they each would wring a chicken's neck. They would grab the chicken by the head, twirl it around and fling the chicken to the ground, head still in hand. The headless chicken would run around for a couple of seconds, then fall to the ground lifeless, as though they just realized they no longer had a head. I know that now, that sounds like a horror story, but at the time, on the farm it seemed natural. We didn't laugh, but respected the fact that the chicken gave her life so we could eat. We watched as Granny plunged the bird into boiling water to make the feathers easier to remove. We helped pluck the chicken for dinner and felt like we had contributed to the meal.      

Nugget and Strip

  The farm was a wonderful and smelly, messy place to visit. We knew where our food came from and how it got to the table. I just didn't name any of the animals again. I helped with peeling vegetables and in the garden, growing them so that they may be canned to last the winter. I knew farming was not pretty like the packages in the supermarket. But I would have never even suspected the ugliness of corporate farms. I buy organic when possible, but the requirements for labeling a product organic are convoluted and hard to understand. I wonder if that is on purpose. Most of the vegetables I buy are from Farmer's Markets or from the farms around the valley. I always plant a couple of tomato plants each year, as much to have a link to my past as to feed myself. To nourish the soul as well as the body.