{"id":17785,"date":"2022-03-13T20:55:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T00:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/?p=17785"},"modified":"2024-08-27T16:57:59","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T20:57:59","slug":"life-lessons-from-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/2022\/life-lessons-from-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"life lessons from farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n life lessons from farming\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Moving from the city to the farm was not part of my childhood dreams. Glen and I met at university in Biology lab. I was fully ensconced in my city life, he had just recently purchased a small hobby farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few years in our relationship I moved out to the farm, a commitment to give this a try knowing my commute back to the city for school and work meant I wasn’t not completely severing ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My next commitment was in the form of 24 egg laying chicks. It was an uneventful drive to the farm after I picked them up at the local co-op. Their new abode was ready including heat lamps and fresh hay. Given they were here to grow large enough to start providing eggs, I considered this a longer term venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were settling in and I was up at the garden tackling the weeds which were now bigger than the vegies. It was a good spot to keep an eye on the barn and think of the very cute chicks and their addition to the farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking up from the chore at hand I saw one of our two sows sauntering in the side barn door. Was that left open?? oh oh<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ran down to the find the sow licking its chops… and not a chick in sight… not even feathers. The pig had devoured them.. all but one. I heard a peeping from the far corner.. going over gingerly I saw this traumatized feathered creature, dazed but alive..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guilt and sorrow settled in. I chastised the pig, clearly for my benefit alone. It would be a long time before I could forgive and forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With chick in hand we slowly moved up to the house, absorbing what had just transpired. She was settled into a box in the spare room. She needed time to grow and therapy to heal before going back to the coop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we developed an attachment. She was, perhaps, oblivious to her surroundings but safe. I knew the inevitable, as she grew larger she would need more chick space to roam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that day came. Down to the barn we went with a spring in our step, and into the coop with more fresh hay and heat lamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next day I sauntered down, enjoying the morning sunlight, to feed the few animals we had. I headed right for the coop, alas, not chick to be seen. I looked in the pig pen, this time seeing evidence of feathers and bones. They will eat anything and likely she flew into the pen looking for company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The perils of animal life… and my reliance on anthropomorphism to make sense of it and perhaps misguiding me.. would stay with me as I continued on this farming venture. And we then had two daughters who then joined in on the adventures and quirks of farming life.
\nWanda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moving from the city to the farm was not part of my childhood dreams. Glen and I met at university in Biology lab. I was fully ensconced in my city life, he had just recently purchased a small hobby farm. After a few years in our relationship I moved out to the farm, a commitment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoir"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17792,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17785\/revisions\/17792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}