We started very early yesterday morning. Hugo, our friend Bryce towing the trailer with his truck, me and Daisy’s Bobby on his final trip. I always say thank you to an animal when I raise it for food, even the chickens get a thank you as they are carefully packed for their journey. We said Goodbye and Thank You to the Bobby in the pouring rain.
Here is a funny story – well not so funny but you will laugh with me a little I think.
I had called the little local abbatoir a few days ago to confirm The Bobbys arrival – we are trying a new facility that is quite close by so they did not know me.
“What’s the name of the farmer?, said the girl on the phone to confirm my booking.
I told her my name.
“Good morning, Cecilia” she said, I could hear her smile into the phone.
She hesitated then she said “So, what is the name of the farmer?”
I told her my name again and added. “I am the farmer.”
“You are the farmer?” she said, her voice lifting. “But you are a – I mean. You do the farming? You raise the cows.” Emphasis on the You each time.
“Yes.” I said wearily “and the pigs and the chickens.”
“Well,” she said ” I didn’t know that .. I mean .. We don’t see many women farmers ’round here. And your husband -does he farm as well?.”
I was a little aghast at this question. Was this a trick question? An assumption that no lady farmer would be without a husband farmer. Did there have to be a big strong man farmer behind every woman farmer?
“No. He does not farm. He works off the property.” I said. “When he is home and I need something heavy lifted, I ask him to lift it then I send him back to the kitchen.”
There was a pause.
“Will YOU be bringing the steer in?” she said. Her mouth open I could hear the spaces.
“Yes.”
“Oh” she laughed nerously. “Well.. ” she said “I would love to meet you.” I think she thinks I have a hood and a cape and some kind of gold whip.
Poor thing was trying to be nice but was genuinely confused about a Woman raising animals for food. Wild Women, like you and me, are a curious mixture of gentle and cooly pragmatic. I think we are all wild. Just that some are more obviously wild than others. It just never occurs to me that a woman canNOT do whatever she decides to do. (Within reason of course – especially when one is feeling reasonable). 
I work on my little farm with my helpers, oblivious to the world, completely forgetting that there are many people in this area who simply do not believe that women can be farmers, real farmers who grow food. And worse I am a foreigner and even worse than that I grew up ON A BEACH. Anyone who has a wee bit of land can do what I do. I am not playing. This is my business. This is not a zoo. It is my job. I make little to no money but a lot of food, I Save a huge amount of money and even more importantly we eat clean proteins. It is old fashioned. I can trace my food straight to my fields and gardens.
Any woman can do this. Any man can do this. Any family can. All you need is a little land or a large back yard – but goodness -This was another Woman who was shocked at a Woman being the boss of a farm.
I was very tempted to take this steer to the slaughter house in high heels and a short skirt, but one needs to climb up into the trailer to move the animal off and into the chute. And cows have very big feet. And it was a sloppy muddy chilly rain yesterday, so it was ripped farm trousers and gumboots (with a little mascara just for fun!) .
I have to say: the men who were there to receive the cow into a very clean and well run, tiny facility were very respectful and allowed me to call the shots. And when a pin needed to be pulled and a gate opened they shouted to me to do it (because I was right beside it) just like they would shout to a man. (The Bobby was a little too anxious to get into the building once he had navigated the chute and so I was literally stalling his forward motion with my hip as I opened an unfamiliar pen gate. Probably best not to try that in heels! )
Anyway I laughed – a little bit.
Thank you so much for all your fantastic cookie recipes yesterday. I am going to rename yesterdays post A Collection of Fellowship Chocolate Chip Cookies! I will go back and do that right now. Often the best half of the farmy blog posts in the Lounge of Comments! Magnifique!
So I looked at all your recipes, put my thinking cap on and created one new recipe from all the ideas. They were pronounced delicious and are, of course, all GONE!
Here is the Fellowship Chocolate Chip Cookie
- 2 sticks (1/2 pound or 200g) soft (in our case Home-made) butter
- 1 level cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 small eggs (we have some lovely pullets eggs at the moment)
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 cup of very strong coffee
- Roughly chopped up 8 oz bar of bitter chocolate (chocolate chunks – not chocolate chips – they add an entirely new dimension to the taste).
Mix in the usual sequence, add a little more flour if you need to, spoon in balls onto a cookie sheet, flatten a little with fingers, cook at 375 for about 12 minutes (maybe less maybe more I did not really time them!).
Did you know that in New Zealand we call cookies – biscuits. Biscuits in America are something completely different.
I hope you have a lovely day. We had more wonderful storms and cloud formations yesterday.
Don’t you just love it out here!
Lots of love
cecilia
The Kitchen's Garden 
79 responses to “Are you the farmer?”
I did laugh, a little indignantly, but, yes. 🙂 I’m surprised that in this day and age you would be questioned, even more so that you would be questioned by a woman. At any rate, “you go girl”, as they saying seems to go. I love reading about your farm, learning more about what good farming means, and, well all that you do there. Thanks for your rookie recipe. I have a good chunk of bitter chocolate and just may try making these later today.
I think the bitter chocolate is the secret.. c
I was at a kids party and this lady asked, “so, what do you do here?” I told her about our grass-fed beef farm (in this case, there is a husband farmer 🙂 ) “We farm beef cattle.” She looked at my polka-dot dress, heels and make-up and laughed, “OH? You don’t look like a farmer!” “I like to farm in lipstick,” I smirked. … And I don’t attend children’s parties in gumboots. So what does a farmer look like, I wonder?
Exactly. Not us that is for sure – so the polka dot dress – I like that! c
http://www.upworthy.com/the-classic-image-of-a-farmer-is-a-man-these-stunning-pics-prove-that-wrong?c=tkp1
I love your story. Of course we women can do anything we want. Many times in life I have had guys say to me: “YOU did that?” for whatever my project was at the time. In times of war while the guys were away doing whatever the Armchair generals sent them to do, it was the women who kept the country going… working on the land, in the factories and sursing the wounded back to health when they came home. Three Cheers for the women of this world!
* nursing the wounded back to health when they came home.
That is right and largely forgotton how the women took over the farms in those days.. terrible days that they were by all accounts.. c
It’s hard to shift perceptions in what is historically a patriarchal occupation. Women have always been farmers, but in the small animal/fruit/vegetable arena. Perhaps it has been the strength needed to farm large animals the traditional way. Less strength needed the Celi way, of course, because you persuade rather than force.
I thought this morning when I revisited the Comments Lounge that all those recipes sounded like the start of a Fellowship Food Cookery Book…
*Wonderful* photos of the sky today…
A singularly inspired idea! A Fellowship Food Cookery Book!
I have thought of it too – once I get Letters to my Baby Girl in the can we can seriously look at that idea! c
Love those storm clouds!!
We live in “tropical” Queensland but are on very tight, strict water restrictions at the moment 😦 Haven’t seen any lovely clouds like that in a loooong time! Praying for a wet, stormy summer. {fearing it’ll be another long, hot, dry summer tho}
I often find women more restrictive and judgemental of other women than men are. Most of the men I know are respectful and accepting of women in any of life’s ‘roles’ … Women need to band together more I reckon!
Did you get some showers yesterday? We had a couple of hours of light rain; enough to make the grass grow like crazy but not much use for anything else, right?
Women definitely need to take care of each other – it is paramount that we do that – and we are so isolated now c
We Wild Women (and the male honorary ones amongst us) take care of each other. I have seen the care of the Fellowship reaching out, and it’s powerful stuff…
nope, not a drop 😦 We had a 2 minute sprinkle at 3am about 2 weeks ago and that was about it for the last few months …
Our lawns are all suffering, the 2 minute sprinkle didn’t even give it a lift lol
*Chuckle*
I get the same comments when people find out I process my own meat chickens. I am also a beekeeper and for some reason, people see these jobs as “a man’s” job. I personally like the shock value of it all and can laugh about it as well, but I am very proud that I know how to do these things. My husband will be the first to tell them I don’t do anything unless I can do it by myself. Not totally true as I do appreciate his mechanical and physical contributions. My great-grandmother and grandmother taught me these jobs so I learned from the best women around!
And you are blonde! Surely a wee blonde such as yourself cannot lift a super of bees! Not all by your little self .. ha ha ha ha!! c
A laugh, and a sigh from me, she who has a first name that can be designated for a girl or boy, who works in an business sector where men [still] predominate other than in support roles, assumptions abound, gets correspondence addressed as Mr, gets to see the confusion first hand when I’m not the expected gender… You wore mascara for fun, I wear heels to corporate functions to amuse myself and for the view 🙂
I used to wear heels when i was teaching too – half my students were taller than me otherwise! .. c
GRRR! I’m sure that was frustrating and funny–I’m glad you most saw the funny side of her assumptions. All of us in your farmy family know that you can do (just about) anything!! You are Celi hear you roar! 😉
Hooray for the tougher sex (female of course) I wonder if the US is more gender typecast than Europe? There are shedloads of women farmers here. I like the idea of a fellowship cook book – I’d contribute my seriously sinful chocolate cake to the feast.
Have a good weekend,
love,
ViV
I said to my Mother in Law one day that i thought American women were the least emancipated I have ever met, mostly in small rural towns i think. But often some of the women are doing Everything while some of the men sit and wait for dinner. Especially her generation (in their 70’s and 80’s now and they were the big feminists in their time) do all the cooking and cleaning and waiting on their men. All they did was add paid work to a womans current work load. Literally waiting on their men, picking up the glass from beside their chair and taking it into the kitchen to wash it. The result of course is a whole generation of men who do not know how to cook and clean or manage a home m,arried to women who have no intention of doing this either. I am SURE John would rather I was happily in the kitchen in a pinny when he got home ,with his clean clothes and a towel already put out for him in the shower, and his dinner bubbling on the stove. and his work clothes sorted and in their proper places, instead i am bringing the cows in for milking and get to start dinner about 7.30 the washing is still in the washing machine, the bed has not been made and I have not been to the supermarket in weeks. I am just not that kind of woman.
However I do get these things done on rainy days!!
But it is a conundrum.
c
This is SO spot on! Loving this discussion.
Oh, how I loved this particular post… and the photos are fantastic this morning! I particularly loved that you addressed us as “Wild Women” and I had a robust chuckle at “And worse I am a foreigner and even worse than that I grew up ON A BEACH.” Those are the thing about you that I love… you ARE different… and you own it all! Your stories are real life, and they resonate with all wild women who blaze a path of their own. I often wonder how many generations must pass before we shed these historic perceptions of women’s occupational roles?
You are the Wildest of the Wild Women. Wild Women are not noisy, they carry a calm expanse of wilderness in their Selves.. c
I got the same reaction when I started farming 20 years ago as a single woman. They called it my little experiment and decided I wasn’t really a farmer because I didn’t have dairy cows. I only (lol) grow vegetables for 100 families, 2 farmers markets and raise about 300 chickens for meat and eggs each year.
You are a busy woman.. ONE HUNDRED families fed! That is an accomplishment indeed.. You are proud of what you are doing – I like that in a farmer!.. c
Lol, Oh I would have so suffered thru in heels and miniskirt! Just because I’m evil like that. 😀
Evil girl that you are!!
I think perhaps it must be tiring to be the one who appears to break convention, especially when it is women who are the most surprised at another woman. But yes, I had a little laugh. It is good education for others, especially girls and young women, to see that anyone can do anything. The Big Guy and I went to hear Col. Chris Hadfield speak at a local event on Thursday, the Canadian astronaut who was the commander of the International Space Centre for a 5-month stint in 2013. He is the kind of person we should celebrate, not the celebrities the general public seems to adore. The point being that, at age 9 he watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon and decided that he wanted to be an astronaut, when at the time Canada did not have a space agency and only Americans were accepted to NASA. So how did he get there? Just like our lady farmer – one step at a time, making good choices, lots of learning, lots of support, lots of hard work. But he makes the point that he had fun along the way too, because he didn’t want to never have fun AND never get to be an astronaut. I’ve just started to read his book, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life On Earth” and he made me laugh on the first page – bodes well for the rest of the book I think.
I shed a few tears as well, because it felt a little like the end of a chapter. Thank you Daisy’s Bobby.
Chris S in Canada
That sounds like a fascinating book. I like to buy these books as Audible books – I wil look for it! Thank you!
c
Not sure if it’s available through Audible, but there is an e-book version. Published through Vintage Canada, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca He also has a website, http://www.chrishadfield.ca You might find more information there. Have been picking away at the book today, am on page 39 and have laughed many times, but I’m enjoying his life philosophy too. Hope you find the book. Chris S
The cookies look delicious! The light in the wood whacker picture looks different, half hearted in a way. The season is changing. Goodbye and thank you to Daisy’s Bobby. He lived a good life.
I cannot bear that it is changing this year – usually I am ready for it but I have three jars of tomatoes in the pantry! THREE! Surely we have a little more growing time.. c