THE FARM June 21 +

Southern Illinois is gorgeous. Rolling hills, green everywhere, fields of wheat that look like golden ocean. My destination, the farm, is owned by my cousin’s uncle Bob and his wife Sharon. They raise beef (I feel a bit rude visiting and not being red-meat eater). In addition to their 24 head of cattle or so, they have five horses (Tica, Toomba, OT, Roco, and Maya), a seeing-eye donkey named Pancho (to help guide a blind horse who has since passed), two dogs (Chrysler and Pluto), a bunch of cats (Bajadhour, Gibahn, Chicken, and Bob for starters), a few roosters (Rush, Sweatpants), bunch of chickens (no namers), Guinea hens (all are called “Guinea”), a small flock of crested ducks (only one is named: Circumstance)...I think I got it all. Below: a mishmash of farminals.

The farm is fun! I get to help out with chores like collecting eggs from the hen house, feeding the ducks, watering the cattle, and feeding the horses. I helped participate in horse-washing, which actually also includes horse-squeegee-ing. No joke. The weather here is extremely hot, hanging around the 90s everyday, which inevitably has lead to a few pond-swims. Unfortunately, the pond itself is so hot that it’s not too much of a reprieve. After a particularly hot day, Sharon and I swam in the evening before chores. As there was practically no difference between the water temperature and the outside temperature, we didn’t bother putting on clothes again to finish up on the farm...which lead to the first (and hopefully last) time I shoveled manure in a horse pen in my bikini and tennis shoes. (And no, I didn’t document this last event with a photo.)

Other notable farm tidbits: their neighbor grows tomatoes in a field that runs along the driveway. As a measure against the deer, he plays Christian talk radio 24/7, so when things are quiet in the middle of the day, you can hear faint voices. We’ve decided that he could market those tomatoes as “infused with family values”...talk about genetically engineered crops!