I wrote a post a little while ago sharing my thoughts on Caro Claire Burke’s novel, Yesteryear. I won’t be too redundant, but to offer you a very brief summary, the book follows the marriage between Natalie and Caleb and their aspirations to farm together.
There is a hell of a lot more to the plot than just that, but for the sake of this blog post, I’m addressing the element of agriculture in the book.
Yesteryear was chosen as our monthly read with my book club, and when we met to discuss it, one of my main points was how successfully Burke depicted the romanticization of farming in her story. To provide you with some context, neither Natalie nor Caleb has any agricultural background or experience. The idea of establishing a working farm is initially Natalie’s, but Caleb soon becomes infatuated with the concept of it, and the two of them quickly discover they don’t exactly know what the hell they’re doing. As an example, the couple end up losing roughly five Holstein cattle in the beginning years of their operation because they’re unaware that this type of cattle must be milked if they have calved, and the poor things die of mastitis complications.
I was born and raised on our family’s farm, and I continue to work on the farm to this day. Farming, while incredibly rewarding, is also profoundly challenging at times, and I’ve always taken issue with folks who romanticize farming, having absolutely no agricultural experience themselves. It is not for everyone, and it involves a lot of work, sacrifice and grit if you hope to last in the industry. There are incredible moments, and there are horrific ones, and unless you’re going to acknowledge both sides of the agricultural coin, don’t bother preaching how cute and whimsical farming is, please.
ontheedgeofeverything 