The Real Life of the Gentleman Farmer

As if emerging from the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalogue, he stepped out of his Audi S.U.V. onto the clean, packed pea gravel of a beautiful 300 acre horse farm. The lush rolling hills encompassed by undulating white fencing, the clear blue skies and the clean air welcomed him. After the fever pitch of life in the city, a little taste of the agrarian life -- the good life -- was just what he needed.

The rich brown leather of his loafers shined brightly beneath the pressed cuff of his designer slacks and, as he pivoted and closed the car door, the gravel made a satisfactory crunch. He set off in the direction of the horse barn to look for Eduardo, his farm manager...

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Since we decided to move to the farm two years ago, I have often been told that I was living the life of the age-old 'gentleman farmer.'

The idea of exercising the aristocratic craft of writing for a (very modest) living and spending my leisure time in raising animals, cutting and stacking wood, and tending to the garden do indeed sound vaguely like that noble, agrarian ideal -- think Thomas Jefferson -- and, believe me, my imagination often strives to see it as such, but reality is quite another story.

An instance:

Last Friday was the appointed end of the line for our meat chickens, who had reached the requisite weight and were ready for butchering.

The day began early with reveille tooting around 6 a.m.

Dressed in a grimy and torn pair of work pants and a holy (gaps in the fabric, not sanctity) t-shirt, I joined my wife out at the basketball court where the assemblage of bleeder, scalder, plucker and butchering table signified a "don't worry about breakfast" warning. By 7 a.m. we had carried a tub with our first eight conscripts up from their lush, green pasture and were ready to begin.

I'll spare you the remainder of the details from that morning, but suffice it to say that when we were finished around 11:30 a.m. (thanks in very large part to the generous nature and skilled hands of my mother-in-law), I looked and felt even less gentlemanly than I did a few hours earlier.

After a short lunch with Sue, Stephanie, and our friend Charlie, who had also come to lend a hand, I got washed up and headed into the office to spend the afternoon writing. Five hours later, having written an article about a Homebound Ministry for a parish in California and another about a devout, elderly couple in Nebraska the day was done.

By 7 p.m. we freely enjoying drinks at our favorite, lakeside restaurant and discussing the dichotomy, which some (including us) take to be symphonic harmony, between the menial and liberal arts at which I had labored throughout the day.

Two other anecdotes:

About three weeks ago we attended a benefit concert for a local charity. During the evening I happened to look at one of my loafers -- brown and leather, like those of my fictitious 'farmer' above. Noticing something underneath the arch of one of them, I wrenching my ankle slightly to see what it was. It turned out that the entire gap between heal and toe was packed with chicken droppings.

Further, during a recent weekend trip to Hillsdale, a friend mentioned that in his history classes he always encourages his students toward agrarian lifestyles, admitting that he couldn't tell any of them the first thing about raising livestock or growing crops. Rather, he knew the joy and beauty that generations have known from experience by reading Virgil and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Perhaps it is in the combining of the experience and the poetry that the elusive 'good life' might exist.

Whether the ideal of the gentleman farmer is truly at hand I'm not sure, but I do know that, regardless, I need to do a better job of keeping my loafers clean.