From across the field, this view from my living room windows – the ones in want of a good washing – often transports me to the land of toys and make-believe.
From across the field, from my front porch – the one where random dog toys and chew ropes and two dogs sprawl – it looks like a little blonde boy has lined up his tractors and a disk, placed Peterbilts, and built an ERTL toy shed or two.
My experience with toy tractors far exceeds my expertise with real-life tractors.
The cement of our basement floor is summertime cool as my ten-year-old fingers snap together pieces and set up tiny fences. Messy ponytails -equally messy hair now- flipped across shoulders, I create, curate a farmyard for my younger brother. He loves to farm; doesn’t love the setup. Turns out, I love the setup. I don’t realize yet that I am a curator.
At six, he’s delighted for big sister to lend a hand.
And I do. White farmhouse. Red barn. Cows. Pigs. Countless hours creating a world for toys to rev to life.
Fast forward a few years – fifteen, give or take – and here I am. Knelt next to a blonde toddler, wisps of hair escape around my face.
Outside my good farmer man sets his IRL combine sieve and readies the header. He’s graduated from wooden floors and rag rugs to acres of dirt with terraces and waterways, pigweeds and cheatgrass.
Our toddler son holds toy duty now.
I hook a tiny cultivator to the 1/64 th John Deere tractor. He beams and chubby hands guide the tractor across his field – the one that rather resembles the round hot pink rug from his big sister’s room.
I’m working on my master’s degree in toy farming, while the farmer works on spray rates, and drill depths, and market values.
I attach the plastic header for the hundredth time….in the last half hour.
Farming in real life does look a bit glossy, carries a sense of idealistic bloom, draws the imagination.
Perhaps, this is helpful on some days.
Farming in real life, is, well, quite a different thing than the land of make-believe.
It’s hard and gritty and bumpy.
Literally.
Metaphorically.
Farming in real life is reliant.
Mastered by weather and markets, disease and drought, inputs and insects.
Too often the choir director waves the baton of stress, hands out sheets of anxiety, shares chords of crops challenged by fill-in-the-blank.
Farming in real life is wrought with weariness.
Waiting for harvest. Watching the clouds. Waiting for next year. Watching the calendar. Waiting for slumber. Watching the next pass across the field.
Farming in real life is resilient.
Sowing in hope. Bringing in the sheaves – whether it be the tenfold ones or the hundredfold.
Sighing. Carrying on. Holding high the whispered prayer.
Sifting grain through weathered hands and standing satisfied.
I gaze at the toyscape over in our farmyard. Not toys at all, unless, perhaps, they’ve come to life.
Farming in real life doesn’t turn out quite as rosy as farming on a pink rug.
But maybe that’s the thing.
You cannot revel in the beauty of a rose bouquet without braving the threat of thorns.
You cannot rejoice in work well done without braving the threat of storms.
You can’t lapse into lighthearted play without a dream to help you soar.
You cannot build perseverance without resolve to practice more.
You cannot build a farm without faith and family and fortitude.
And a set of hands to build the fences and put the header back in place.
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