I spent this past weekend on a farm. An actual cows-and-horses farm in upstate New York. I went with a bunch of friends who were not made for the farm life and we had a blast. We got to play with golden retriever puppies, watch the cows being milked and pet horses. We walked into the living room in the middle of the day and were surprised to find a cat chilling on the couch. Our coffee was made with milk that had come from the cow next door and the freezer was stocked with the meat of a goat who had been raised and killed by the farmer. The inhabitants of the farm were made up of good, simple people who like animals and spending time outdoors.
Towards the end of the weekend, we were asked if we wanted to go see the cows as they continued to be milked. We politely declined the offer, explaining that “we’d had enough cows for one day.” I definitely agreed with the friend who said this but then I wondered to myself, “Why?” At that point, we had only been there for 22 hours and out of that time, we had mostly played with the puppies and had only visited the cows for about a half an hour. An opportunity to spend a weekend on a farm doesn't really come along every day. Why was it that we had already had enough?
I think that it’s a culture thing. We, as 19 and 20-year-old girls ,are always ready to jump at having a new experience and getting to do something out of the ordinary, but after a while the novelty of the experience wears off and we’re ready to go back to our regular routine or on to the next cool thing. But farmers live differently than the rest of us. I was talking about it with one of my friends that came to the farm with me. I could never do it, I could never live on a farm. Aside from the smell, which I think is a valid reason not to in and of itself, I wouldn't be able to live on a farm because it’s the antithesis to how I was brought up -- as a millennial in the disposable generation.
I think we were all "cowed out" because we have no patience anymore. We are called the throw-away generation because we don't like to take the time to fix something or work on something. Farms take time and patience and effort. You have to raise the cow and then milk it every day, twice a day and then pasteurize the milk. You have to breed the dogs, train them and then sell them. You have to clean the horses and feed them and train them. Generally nowadays, we just don't have the patience.
Movie director Neil Labute said, “We live in a disposable society. It's easier to throw things out than to fix them. We even give it a name - we call it recycling.” What’s funny is even on a place like a farm where you assume everything is natural and cared about, there was a bull-calf that almost died of weakness. The farmer allowed a 23-year-old guy who had just moved to the farm to keep it if he could nurse it back to health. He was successful and is planning a big BBQ in a few weeks from now. I guess there still is some hope for the patience to fix something in our generation.
