Saturday, July 19, 2014

I want to be a farmer.

On most, if not all, days I wake up and quickly remember that life has been amazing to me. It starts with opening my eyes every morning and finding a fantastic partner in crime next to me. And it keeps getting better. The good morning stretch and wag from Neo, the conversation with mom and dad on the way to work, working at a company that makes aircraft engines (planes have been a lifelong fascination and a part of me is amazed I get paid for doing this), conversations with colleagues and the odd chats or calls with close friends & family and then finally an evening spoilt with choices that I infrequently exercise but choices I have nevertheless - running, programming lego robots,   learning to play the guitar, reading a middle earth fantasy book, playing warhammer games with my high elf army at the local games workshop, thinking of ways to contribute to wildlife conservation, dreaming up start ups and finally falling asleep, content. Heck, most things I have wanted to do in my life, I am doing now, even if the degree of doing varies.

Which brings me to one other thing I have always wanted to be. To be a farmer. I am not quite sure when I picked that up as an aspiration but as a kid there were plenty of sources of inspiration - books by Enid Blyton, particularly Six Cousins Again and summer vacations with grand mom soaking in the art of cultivating paddy and raising goats, cows and chickens. I still clearly remember the first time I helped sow paddy seeds when we were short of people on a particular day, I remember taking the goats everyday to their pasture and I remember getting lessons from the boys next door on how to get the attention of a wandering cow while grazing them.

Then the rest of life happened. College, an engineering degree and finally work. As I traveled the world on work life got a lot more complicated in comparison to those summer vacations, life almost got surreal. The most exagerated it ever got was when I would take a flight from the US to India on a Friday and fly back to the US on Monday, and then repeat the exercise again next month. The kid who wanted to just be a farmer had come a long way, almost too long,  and ran the risk of getting lost. But even during all madness a visit to grandmom's place always grounded me, reminded me of who I really was. I would always be the Keeper of the Goats. In the midst of everything else in life I made sure of one thing - that in my lifetime I would always have access to that one place that was the most magical of all places to me.

And then in 2013 we moved to Cincinnati. If there was a list of places where I expected to make progress on the farming dream, Cincinnati would have been at the bottom. But I underestimated the universe. The first twist came when D & me met Drausin & Susan (a D&S coincidence) from Grassroots Farm & Foods at a nearby farmers market. Drausin is a banker turned farmer and Susan is a lawyer, magical cook and weekend farmer. They sell grass-fed lamb & beef and it's been a privilege to get to know such a fantastic and fascinating couple. Their views on life, food, farming and everything else are remarkable and we have learnt so much. They love and respect what they raise (a part of me is still troubled by the fact that the animal is killed in the end...but I do love meat, so thats a contradiction for later resolution) and have created a wonderful farm. They are also followers of Wendell Berry, a farmer whose essays touch my very soul. We have visited their farm a couple of times. D helps them with marketing and cooking samplers and I get to spend time every other Sunday at their stall in the farmers market. Its hard to connect selling aircraft engines and selling grass-fed meat but strangely I relish both and feel at peace. I have a whole new respect for food, something that touches us every day and is so critical to our very existence.

D & me have taken yet another step towards farming. A couple of weeks ago we leased a small garden plot (25ft x 25ft) to grow our own vegetable garden. We were late to start for this season but we have planted every possible seed we could lay our hands on. The evenings have one more choice now - weeding, watering and just relishing.

Who says you can't have it all in this lifetime?