Focus On Junk

When my daughter was home two weekends ago she borrowed my camera and took a long walk around the farm, snapping photos of this and that. It seems she especially has an eye for junk heaps.

My daughter is an art teacher at a large high school near Des Moines, photography being one of the courses she teaches. Her knowledge of cameras far exceeds my own; if only I could attend her classes and learn about manual focusing…..shutter speeds, aperture values, exposure compensation……all that stuff I know nothing about.

Yes, obviously, we have way too much space on this farm……space where cast-offs get tossed and accumulate into topsy-turvy piles. Eventually, the old metal gets hauled off to a scrap yard near Waterloo, where it is recycled.

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Well, even though I have precious little technical knowledge of cameras, I truly do enjoy taking pictures. Such an easy way to have fun, though it has pretty much taken over my blog. I didn’t start out blogging with photos…..that didn’t start until the blog was a year old. Now it seems my blogposts are prompted mostly by the photos I take. I enjoy that, but am not sure it fits my original intention for the blog as a place to vent my thoughts. Now, I don’t do that as much; not that that matters to anyone else, but it sort of matters to me.

While mowing lawn the other day I decided that maybe I need to indulge in an extra-blogular affair……you know…..get involved with another blog.....for stimulation. It wouldn’t be immoral; I didn’t take a vow of faithfulness to Midlife by Farmlight. If I were to step out on M by F, it would be with an anonymous blog so I could post what to me are deeper, more honest thoughts. There are many subjects I enjoy reading about and thinking about…..weirdo stuff like theology and quantum physics (no, I don't understand it--I simply find it fascinating).....subjects that don’t fit very well on M by F. Its an illness, probably…..my mind is like a hyperactive child and needs to be all over the place to be happy, fulfilled, satisfied.....whatever.

"Midlife by Farmlight" will continue, though I should make it more consistently farm-oriented, probably. Sometimes the farm stuff seems totally old hat to me and I get tired of posting about it. But, it needs to be posted, I think. Our small way of farming is dying away and people in non-rural areas don’t realize that. Every time I turn around I’m hearing about so-and-so who's sold or rented their farm to a big operator from the next county who can pay the big prices. Dollar signs fill everyones’ eyes. An acre of land around here costs many thousands of dollars to buy and commands almost $300/acre rent. As sensible farmers say, "It just doesn't pencil out." One acre of land will not provide enough crop to pay the exorbitant rent and production costs. No one can afford that price except “the big guys” and the investors. The big will get bigger and the small will fade away. The current mindset of slick farm magazines seems to be: "Get big or get out."

Maybe the world would be better off without small farms.....who knows. Last evening, in between watching track meet events in the rain, I huddled in the car and managed to read two pages of Kathleen Norris' book, Dakota. She was talking about life on the Plains of South Dakota, but I think it could apply to Iowa, too. She quoted someone named Loren Eiseley: Plains people have been strung out.....under vast solitude rather than linked to the old-world village with its adjoining plots. We were mad to settle the West in this fashion. Perhaps living and farming on individual farms IS insane. It worked for a time, but now its day in the sun is almost done. Everyone will move into town, with a few of the town residents being employed on corporate farms surrounding the town. That scenario could easily be in Iowa's future, the way things are going.

The only reason our farm remains in the family is because my father-in-law had the foresight to begin selling the farm to us years ago when prices were relatively reasonable. (Even at that "reasonable" price, Husband and I will be in our 60's before its paid off.....we must be nutz!) If my FIL would have held onto ownership until his death in 2007, we'd have been unable to afford the selling price of the farmland. It gives me a headache to even think about trying to pass it on successfully to the next generation……who knows if such a thing will be possible or if our kids will even want the hassle of a farm. We send them off to college and they find a "better" life. I try not to think about it. Its much more fun to take pictures and blog! And, I truly enjoy interacting with those readers who comment or send emails.

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Happy day to you!

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[Here.....I'm sure you'd love to see the track meet conditions from last evening. Right before this 4 x 200-meter-relay race the loudspeaker voice had announced that the meet would be suspended following said race, due to the cold rain. Thank goodness, or we'd have ended up with a bunch of sick kids, I'm afraid, and possibly some spectators, too. As I viewed this video, the realization dawned that my son had wished me and my suddenly too-conspicuous maternal instinct would get lost. "I'll see you at the car", he said. What else could that mean but, "Beat it, Mom"? Behind me, a very helpful boy was trying to grab hold of my umbrella which kept blowing berserk, inside out in the wind.]