Taking risks

Risk-taking thresholds vary from person to person.  And farmers must have the highest risk thresholds of anyone I've ever met.

The other day a colleague at work asked me how things were on the farm.  I told her they were as well as could be expected, given that we were having a very cold, slow spring this year.  We expect strawberry season to begin about 2 weeks later than 'normal' and if it doesn't warm up soon, it could be later than that.  She asked me "How do you do it, I couldn't stand the uncertainty."

If I weren't married to a farmer, I would never do anything like this.  I might plant a tomato and some green beans, or I might just shop at farmers' markets, or subscribe to a CSA.  The risks involved with farming -- the weather, the diseases, the insect pests, the animals (deer, racoons, birds) -- any one of which can destroy enough of your crop to ruin your income for the year -- are overwhelming for me.  Farmers seem to sort of thrive on the riskiness of their ventures.  They'll tell you that's not so, but I believe it is.

Of course, farmers also farm for a myriad of other reasons.  Growing food for people to eat is an honorable thing to do, and most farmers really enjoy that part of their profession. Farmers tend to be very independent, they like to be the boss & enjoy not being tied to a set work schedule.  Living in the country is also very nice (I often think it's the part I like best of all).  Our nearest neighbor is about 1/4 mile away & we can't see her lights most of the year.  And I imagine there are other reasons -- as many as there are farmers -- for why people farm.

As I type this, I can see Farmer Bill and a potential summer intern walking the farm on a tour.  They've walked past the hoop houses, out through the blueberries, the raspberries, the newly planted strawberry patch, and possibly a sweet corn field.  Now they're walking through the apple orchard, where the apple trees are ever-so-slowly waking up this year.  Last year by this time the orchard was almost finished blooming.  We'd had a hard frost on the blossoms just a few days past and we were waiting to see how much damage the frost had done (turned out it cut our apple crop to about 40% of normal).  This year, we haven't yet seen a single blossom on apples or strawberries yet.  And we've had rain a lot more days than we've had sun.  I'm not walking with them because I have a bad cold, and am just not up to walking the entire farm in the drizzling rain.  Sometimes the thought of all the work Farmer Bill has yet to do to get things ready this year makes my stomach hurt.  I am definitely not the risk taker in our family.