Green Acres

Years ago we made the mistake to pack our bags, leave the City and live in the country. My natural habitat is a town, with shops and cafes and people everywhere but since friends of ours enthused so much about "country-life" we decided to give it a try. After all, it looks good on TV, doesn't it? We saw ourselves growing tomatoes and lettuce and have some livestock. Yes, this sounded very romantic to us. And of course (exactly like on TV) there was the pub on Saturday-evenings with all the locals ensconced cozily indoors with a pint in their mighty big hands, chatting away about "farming-things" and their private lives. That was how we saw Country-life.

We bought a small 1acre plot and built a house on it. We had a dog at the time so that was a good start; farmers have dogs don't they. But disaster was about to strike time and time again. The farmer from down the road needed to move his cattle to another paddock and about 200 heifers were on the road. My dog decided to "help" the (well trained) cattle-dogs moving the cattle along and jumped right in the herd. Pandemonium arose, frightened cows everywhere. When I finally grabbed my dog the farmer was bent over the steering-wheel of his motor-bike laughing himself silly. My dog thought she had finally discovered her vocation in life and was immensely proud of herself. To save myself more embarrassment in the future I put the dog on a chain and attached a large brick at the end of it. This way she couldn't get under the gate and escape anymore. I didn't believe she had a talent there.

After a while I tried to get into the "farming thing". We bought two kid-goats. Since they were still babies I had to get out with bottles at all hours of the day and night to feed them. What I didn't know was that they cry like human babies, but a lot louder! And so another fracas broke out, this time on a daily basis. They set off the crying of all the babies at the neighboring houses! This resulted in a somewhat strained relationship with our neighbors. And of course after a while the goats chewed through the ropes, escaped and ate everything in sight including our underwear, new trees and shrubs, one even came into the house and chewed on the houseplants.and was no doubt looking at my tasty curtains..

As a good "farming-person" you need many skills, one of them is being able to drive around with a trailer. I tried to make my husband understand that even driving without a trailer bobbing behind my vehicle is draining my nerves, but one day I felt courageous enough to try it. I had instructions from my (absent) husband, clear and concise. "You get the trailer, you hook it on the car and way you go!" "But what if I have to back in and out?" I said with fear in my voice."Easy, you turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction." So on this quiet Tuesday morning when he was off to work in the city, I decided to give it a try.With both hands I grabbed the trailer.; talking to myself to give me courage. Unfortunately the road was not as flat as I had thought. The trailer had a mind of its own and went off, rolling down the hill, me still attached. We both ended up in a ditch. The farmer who finally discovered the two of us and pulled us out with his tractor must have wondered where my car was.

Since all these practical skills, required to make a good farmer, didn't come naturally with me I decided to talk to the experts. I didn't want to let on that I was inexperienced of course. So I practiced suitable facial expressions in the bathroom-mirror, put on my jeans and gumboots and a flannel shirt to look the part.I rubbed some mud on the (new) gumboots for good measure; it's the first thing they look at, these farmers. "At least I have crows-feet around my eyes",I thought to myself, " that looks as if I have been staring out over the fields forever".Wrinkles might not look attractive to Townspeople but they are certainly a "sign" to farmers.(or so I think). So suitably attired I went looking for a real farmer to start a conversation and glean some insider-secrets about farming from him.I didn't have to look far.

Leaning over a paddock-fence was one, looking for all the world as if he had no worries at all. He was looking at his one and only cow in the paddock. "Ah well perhaps he's too poor to buy more" I thought. I approached him and we started talking. I boasted that I was from farming stock myself (oh oh what a lie) as to find some common ground here, which of course didn't exist. The man looked at me and pointed to his "cow" with his cigarette. "What do you think of that?" he said. I looked at it and it looked kind of big to me.Must be a good cow then. "Yeah, great" I said,"Have you just milked her then?"He burst out in laughter. "Hmm, it is a steer lady, hard to milk". "Are you sure you come from a farming background?" I slunk back to the car in silence.

We decided that Green Acres is not for us. We leave the true farmers well alone to do their jobs in the country. We never went to the local pub and yes, we are Townspeople after all.