Hard Work and Cow Farts

Some people read this blog because they are attracted to the idea of moving to the country and living the simple life—having a big garden, canning vegetables, raising chickens and goats, making cheese, baking bread, and otherwise dwelling in idyllic pastoral splendor. Gee, that sounds like me.

Apparently there enough people who dream of country living to have spawned a number of magazines devoted to living La Vita Rural. These magazines are slick and glossy and usually paint an overly romanticized and sanitized version of rural life.

For instance, a typical story might be about the joys of raising miniature Nubian goats. The accompanying photographs show an attractive middle-aged couple leaning against a white painted fence gazing at their flock frolicking in a green clover-filled pasture. The woman is wearing freshly shined boots, gleaming white jodhpurs, and a white linen blouse. The man looks like he stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog. You get the impression that they spend much of their time sitting on the veranda sipping gin and tonics as they enjoy their slice of heaven.

It was hard work putting in these posts for my composting bins.

Based on what I’ve seen here in Fannin County, living the simple country life is not like that at all. If you really want to get back to nature, be prepared for hard work, long hours, and dirt.

Take the joys of raising goats. I have met a number of people who raise goats. That seems to be a popular thing to do around here. (That and raising llamas and alpacas. Go figure.)

I even know a couple that is breeding miniature Nubian goats. They do not look like they stepped out of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Rather, they look like they stepped out of a National Geographic article about peasant life in East Buttcrackistan.

What the rural glamour magazines do not depict is getting up at 5:30 in the morning when the temperature is 20 degrees to milk your nanny goats and having to sanitize their teats with your freezing hands. They do not tell you about the joys of shoveling goat poop, carrying heavy containers of goat’s milk for pasteurization, and all the other gritty work required. The goat farmers I’ve met do not wear shiny leather boots. They wear big rubber boots to keep their pants out of the mud and goat shit—usually unsuccessfully.

Back in my day, there was one magazine devoted to country living: Mother Earth News. The great thing about the old Mother Earth News was that it never gave you the impression that country living was like living in a high-priced gated community. How could you get possibly get that impression when the articles were about building a house out of straw bales, heating your dwelling with composting cow manure, and the joys of living in a yurt?

Living in a yurt, for God’s sake. Mongols live in yurts. If living in a yurt is so great why did the Mongols try to conquer the known world in the 13th Century? It’s because living in a yurt sucked. They envied the lifestyle of the civilized world and wanted to live better. Living better did not include living in a yurt.

I aspire to live the simple country life. I want to have a big garden, can my own food, make cheese and sausage, and maybe one day have chickens and rabbits. Who knows, I may even have a goat or two one day.

I draw the line on alpaca and llamas, however. I do not want to own an animal that spits on me. If I raise a farm animal I want to be able to eat it. As far as I know, there is no such thing as alpaca burgers or country fried llama. Finally, alpacas and llamas are related to camels, and I’ll be damned if I’ll give anyone the opportunity to refer to me as a camel jockey. But I digress.

In the last eight months I’ve made great progress towards country living. I’ve also done more physical work and been consistently dirtier than at any time in my life with the exception of basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, when I was 20 years old. I do not look like I stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog. Most days I look like I stepped out of a movie about the Hatfields and McCoys.

My point is this: don’t be fooled by slick magazines into thinking that living the simple life in the country is easy. Be prepared for hard work and dirt.

Methane and cow farts.  I heard on the news that the EPA is going to investigate the amount of methane released by oil and gas drilling. Apparently someone in Washington thinks this might be a problem that may need regulating.

Now I haven’t done any research into this, but I’ll bet that cow farts release more methane into the atmosphere in one day than the oil and gas industry does in one year.

Furthermore, I once read that farmers fart more than most people because their diet is typically rich in complex carbohydrates, and that of all the farmers, the Amish fart the most. I can’t prove this, but it makes sense to me. If you’ve ever been around a farm you know that there are certain odors associated with them. It could be the livestock, but it could also be the farmer and his family.

If the EPA is going to investigate methane released by the oil and gas industry, I think it’s only fair that it look into farmers and cows.

I don’t think the EPA can do much about bovine flatulence, but if it turns out that farmer farting is a problem and the EPA decides to regulate it, I’m buying some stock in the company that makes Beano.