What does it take to move a family farm between the generations?   Heroes.

 

Bob and I have just finished unloading from the market when Kate, our summer intern, clomps by in her barn boots carrying a dead chicken.  Dad is just coming in from the back fields in the Mule and she walks head-on toward his moving vehicle, determination and grit in every step.  He stops.  She waves the chicken in the air at him.

“Cuz I just gotta know!”  She hollers over the engine.  He cuts the motor and slowly peals himself from the bench seat.  We all know he is in pain.  But the joy of Kate’s question overrules the pinch in his sciatica.  I follow behind as the tailgate of the Mule is lowered to become an impromptu lab bench.  Kate pulls her jackknife from the back pocket of her Carhartts.

They lay the stiff chicken breast-side-up and Kate runs her fingers trepidatiously over the belly of the bird, asking, without words, where to make an incision.

“Do we have coccidiosis?”  I ask, peering over their shoulders and noticing the caked bloody stools around the bird’s anus.

“We found the blood in the stools this morning,” Dad answers.  “We’ve already started treating with probiotics.”

“Yeah, but I gotta see,” Kate pushes onward.  Dad reaches forward and makes an imaginary incision line with his finger.  Kate traces it with her blade, and with one slice, she is able to pull free the intestine to begin the autopsy.

I am in awe.  I am ashamed.  I am in love.

I’ve eviscerated many chickens in my time.  My fingers can find just the right spot in the skin where a simple slice will enable the entrails to slip out easily.  They know the feel of hooking around the intestines and giving a gentle pull.

But I don’t do that anymore.  And I never did it like this.  I eviscerated chickens because a good farmer should know how.  Not because I actually wanted to.  Kate’s eyes are intent.  Her awareness is exclusively on that animal.  Her drive to know makes her unaware of everything else around her.

I do not share her fascination.  I’ve worked with Mom and Dad for nineteen years now, and this lack of curiosity has been like a slow growing boil under my skin.  And now, as we get ready to meet with a business planner to outline our farm transition, as I review sales figures and feed bills and payroll, and try to figure out how to bring the farm forward as they prepare to step backward, that boil is about to erupt.

Farm transition planning has suddenly put all of us under the microscope.  I am scrutinizing my parents’ past business decisions.  They are furrowing their brows as I number crunch and draft financial plans. We are all watching Bob from the corner of our eyes, evaluating whether the price of the repairs and improvements he recommends can be justified.  Most of all, I feel like my lack of aptitude for being a herd manager is the biggest glaring flaw in all of it.

How can I be a farmer’s daughter….How can I be a farmer, and not have a burning curiosity to study the bloody stools that have backed up inside a chicken’s intestinal tract?

Mom and Dad passed along to me a deep love of place, of the power of community, of the importance of growing clean, wholesome food in harmony with the earth.  They have passed along an ability to look up what I need to know about tube feeding lambs, about identifying parasitic diseases in a chicken flock.  But that passion that burns in Kate’s eyes is simply not in my genetic coding.

And for nineteen years, I’ve felt the guilt that such passion was not there.

I’ve tried to find it.  I’ve attended some classes, tried to read a few articles without falling asleep, listened to other knowledgeable farmers and experts  But never, in my history with my parents on this land, have I looked at an animal, reflected about the biology inside it and said those magical words that pulled my Dad from his seat:“‘Cuz I just gotta know!”

That is not to say that there aren’t plenty of “‘Cuz I just gottas knows” that have burned inside me, that have pushed me from my bed each morning, long before the sun comes up, without ever requiring the assistance of an alarm clock.  But my ‘Cus I just gottas turn more toward grilling steaks than understanding cattle rumen; or roasting chickens more than eviscerating them;or calculating the return on investment for a possible farm expenditure; or teaching customers about meat cuts; or, as the soft tapping of my keyboard implies every morning, spinning stories that bring people closer to the earth that feeds them.

I cannot help but wonder if my parents are making a mistake, putting the reins of this business into my hands, when I lack that drive for animal husbandry.  I wonder if I am making a big mistake accepting those reins.

A few days later, the girls and I are upstairs at home on a rainy afternoon.  I am making a pair of socks from our wool to bring to the farmers’ market on Saturday.  Saoirse and Ula are quietly playing on the floor beside me as rain pelts the windows.

“You know, Mama,” Ula’s voice cuts through my ponderings.  “There aren’t enough women superheroes.”  I put down the yarn and look at her over my glasses.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Batman and Robin.  Superman.  They’re all men.  All we’ve got is Wonder Woman.”

I nod, and turn my head back to the socks.

“You know, she’s right,” Saoirse puts down the pillow she is sewing and joins the conversation.

Ula continues with her train of thought.  “I mean, they made up something called Bat Girl and Super Girl, but there’s no stories about them.  They just stick them on underwear.” She bounces on the bed next to me.  “I’m going to make a book about woman superheroes!”  She exclaims.

“I’ll help!”  Saoirse volunteers.  Ula runs downstairs to find clay, then sets to sculpting three dimensional models.  Saoirse takes out pencils and paper.

“This is Forest Girl,” Ula shows me her first prototype.  “She can communicate with all the creatures and plants and trees in the forest.”

“And this is Stockinette,” Saoirse has drawn a powerful woman bearing two over-sized knitting needles, “She can defeat anyone with her knitting needs, and she can knit up anything she needs in the spur of the moment.”

“I’m going to make Super-Ula,” Ula cuts in.  “She can imagine anything and bring it to life.”

“And this is Needle Woman!”  Saoirse has made a second drawing.  This one has a barbed sword.  “She has super powers with wool.  She can needle felt anything she needs, plus, she uses her needle as a sword.”

“And next, I’m going to make Super Shanny,” Ula grabs some more clay.

“Super Shanny?” I can’t imagine what powers that woman could have.

“Yup.  She gets a pad of paper and a pen.  And she can do math, or re-write any story to make things work out.”

I don’t know how to respond.  But suddenly, I see this family farm in a new light.  We are not a bunch of farmers who have the same skills.  We are all of us super heroes, each of us endowed with some extraordinary talents, and with some extraordinary weaknesses.  Superheroes need to use their strengths to win the day.  They need to depend on other’s strengths to make up for their weaknesses.

As the daughter of the farmers who want to step back, I am the one who will be deeded the task of carrying this land forward.  And while I can learn about coccidiosis, it is not my superhero strength.  But Ula and Saoirse have reminded me that I have other strengths.  I must draw on those first and foremost.  Because if I try to do it the way my mother and father did it, then I will fail, because I will be carrying forward a family business using my weaknesses.  It has taken me 19 years of following in their footsteps to learn this simple fact: A farm transition requires re-visioning around the strengths of the next generation.  That doesn’t mean the skills and talents my parents built the business around are no longer needed.  But I don’t have to be the one to master them.  I can be SuperShanny, but I don’t have to do it alone.  I get a team of SuperFriends — SuperBob, with his ultimate fix-it powers,  and SuperKate, ready to diagnose and treat any sick animal.  And SuperUla, who can imagine all the possibilities, and SuperSaoirse, who can make wondrous things come from her hands, and SuperJim and SuperAdele, who can offer the wisdom of their experience as we muddle our way forward.