![\"ChristineBarnesHaviland\"](\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/ChristineBarnesHaviland.jpg\")
<\/a>By Christine Barnes Haviland <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n(June 2015) The words roll so smoothly through my father\u2019s lips. They are almost always followed by a story from his boyhood atop the hill on Barnes Road, overlooking the rolling fields and lush meadows of Southern Madison County.<\/p>\n
This will mark his 52nd\u00a0year on his own farm less than 10 miles away, where he has worked tirelessly with an almost spiritual devotion to the land, the animals, the lifestyle. But to him, all of that is only an extension; a continuation of sorts. As a child, I never understood it. Now, at 49,\u00a0as I stand right back where I started, it\u2019s never been clearer.<\/p>\n
I moved away from rural upstate New York at 19, thinking I\u2019d never look back on a childhood that had been so perfectly Americana Norman Rockwell could have painted\u00a0it. Almost without realizing it, I spent the next 20 years trying to get back.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: the experiences I had and the people I\u2019ve had the honor to know throughout those 20 years were positively invaluable. I acquired degrees in journalism and education and worked as a both a news reporter and as a teacher–just 90 miles from New York City.<\/p>\n
But throughout the mundane daily routines of each job, it was always there. \u201cHome.\u201d Not the home where I fell into bed each night at the end of an exhausting day, but upstate New York \u201chome.\u201d The place where my thoughts drifted after each day\u2019s events had faded into the night: The sweet smell of newly cut hay wafting on a warm southern breeze brushing past my pillow. The lonely bellow of a heifer whose quiet curiosity has separated her from the comfort of the herd. The deep chocolate brown of newly plowed sod waiting to be sewn on a warm spring day. And with all those thoughts came a heartfelt aching for home.<\/p>\n
Spring is here now, Fences\u00a0will be\u00a0fixed, the ground soon will be\u00a0rich for planting and the calves will\u00a0take their first tenuous steps outside the comfort of their stalls in the barn. And so,\u00a0the cycle begins again.<\/p>\n
And so, I\u2019ve come full circle as well. Determined to move away at 20 and now determined to give my kids the same life I had. \u201cUp with the chickens\u201d at\u00a04:30 a.m.\u00a0(though we really only have cows; no chickens) to milk the cows in the exact same barn my father did, and ending my days with the evening milking. In between, there\u2019s always something: Plowing, planting, mowing, bailing, harvesting, fixing.<\/p>\n
Every day, learning more and more of the trade I took for granted all those years. Learning from my father who, at age 76, still makes it to the barn most mornings and evenings, if for no other reason than to point out what we did wrong or could have done differently.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not always fun: Forcing yourself out of bed at4:30 a.m.\u00a0and being greeted by water surging from the barn door from a water bucket hose that burst in the night. Getting out of bed every two hours throughout the night to help pull a calf from a cow who is struggling to \u201cfreshen\u201d on her own. Getting kicked, bucked, dirty, slapped with tails and downright exhausted many days.<\/p>\n
But in the end –\u00a0for me anyway –\u00a0the rewards far outweigh the sacrifices, Because after all, it\u2019s a lifestyle, not a job.<\/p>\n
Besides,\u00a0all of these experiences make for great stories to tell my \u2018city friends\u2019. Stories that almost always start with \u201cOver home on the farm\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christine Barnes Haviland, who grew up in Madison, spent 20 years away from Madison County. She returned in 2003 to the country life.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CNY Farm Girl By Christine Barnes Haviland (June 2015) The words roll so smoothly through my father\u2019s lips. They are almost always followed by a story from his boyhood atop the hill on Barnes Road, overlooking the rolling fields and lush meadows of Southern Madison County. This will mark his 52nd\u00a0year on his own farm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23679,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agfarming","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}