My Farm Baby

"You have a child, it just happens to be a farm," said a wise auntie of mine. I've never had a strong urge to produce offspring out of my own body. My mother, despite dropping subtle hints about grandchildren, had to concede that I always played more with my Lego farm set than with baby dolls.

Hawthorn Farm fulfills my maternal impulses. I am always taking care of some creature who will die or suffer without my care, which sounds like a pretty motherly state of affairs according to the parents I know. I also look around the world and don't see a lack of humans who need attention already. Any serious discussion of climate change and sustainability, in my opinion, must include humane and sensible ideas for slowing the petri-dish growth of a supposedly forward-thinking species.

But let me shift back to home. Here, the spirit of Hawthorn Farm is her own being. And as children are born of the body of the mother, and the mother is born out of the appearance of the children, my body is literally created from the living soil of this particular patch of earth. I live in the womb that feeds me. Daniel and I had a serendipitous spark of vision, added countless hours of hard work, and gave rise to some of the farm's features. Sounds parental, right? We are born into ourselves through our love for our land. Raising a farm has been an intensely collaborative effort. I send out a mother's blessing to all who have served this beloved place.