Why We Still Choose to Farm (Even When It’s Hard)

There’s a few pairs of muddy boots by our back door that never really make it to the closet.

They belong to the kids, usually kicked off in a hurry on the way inside for a snack, a story, or to report some very urgent news about a frog, a feather, or a piece of baler twine they’ve decided is treasure. By the time we notice, the sun is usually dropping low over the field, and someone is still outside “helping” in a way that mostly involves climbing things or asking a lot of questions.

This is the life we chose.

And some days, if we’re being honest, it’s also the life that tests us the most.

Farming has never been an easy way to make a living. The weather doesn’t check your schedule. Markets don’t always cover your costs. Equipment breaks at the worst possible time. You can do everything right and still watch a season get turned upside down by a late frost, too much rain, or not enough.

On top of that, the practical side of farming keeps getting more complicated. Regulations, infrastructure, access, paperwork - things that used to be handshake conversations now come with binders and engineering drawings. There are days when it feels like you need to be part farmer, part mechanic, part meteorologist, and part policy analyst just to keep moving forward.

So why stay?

Because in the middle of all that, there’s something here that’s hard to measure but impossible to ignore.

There’s the way our kids know the difference between good soil and tired soil just by looking at it. The way they understand that food doesn’t start in a grocery store, but in the ground, with weather and work and a little bit of luck. There’s the pride that comes from loading a truck with flowers you grew from seed, or stacking bales you watched cure in the sun.

There’s the rhythm of seasons - the push of spring, the long light of summer, the steady work of fall, the planning and mending of winter. Life has edges and pauses out here. You feel time differently when your calendar is tied to frost dates and harvest windows instead of just months on a page.

And there’s stewardship. When you work land year after year, you start to think in decades instead of seasons. You notice where water sits, where wind hits hardest, where shelterbelts need tending. You’re not just extracting something from the land; you’re in relationship with it, adjusting, learning, trying to leave it a little better than you found it.

We don’t farm because it’s the easiest path.
We farm because it’s the one that feels most like ours.

Even on the hard days.
Especially on the hard days.

Because when we look out at the field in the evening light — kids running ahead, wind in the grass, work still waiting for tomorrow — we’re reminded that this life, with all its grit and uncertainty, is still the one we want to build our home in.