Depression Talk

I’ve learned over the last twenty two years that a lot can happen in this life that you don’t expect or want to happen.

My parents were dairy farmers from 1972 until 2003. Thirty one years. Not a short period of time by any means. Thirty one years during which time my mother literally broke her back working. (Seriously. She broke her back working. But that’s another story for another day.)

When I was little, I was told at school that if you work hard, you make money. And I watched my parents bust their asses for my entire life.

I do think that in many cases, hard work pays off. But it doesn’t pay off when you are a farmer in Canada. I could go on a fifteen page diatribe right now about how our government treats the people who provide our food for us, but I’ll spare you.

The bureaucracy involved in running a dairy farm had worn on my parents for thirty one years. We chose to sell our cows in spring 2003, and the day we sold the cows is not one I will ever forget. The cows moved like poetry in motion, walking beautifully out of the barn and into their truck to be shipped to a dairy in Wisconsin.

The barn remained for several years exactly as it did the day the cows left. I wondered to myself why we, as a family, did not go down and clean it from top to bottom, sweeping, mucking, scrubbing until it was perfect.

I was at a friend’s house last weekend, and she had recently purchased her father’s farm. She was telling me of the work she had to do to make the barn functional again, and I looked at her and said, ‘You know, when our cows left my family did the same thing. We didn’t go back to the barn to clean out a single thing.’

My friend sighed and looked at me and said ‘Well, sometimes you just can’t.’ And its true. Sometimes this life throws a curve ball that you just have no desire to deal with. The milkers, the bulk tank, the stalls, the neck rails: These are all things you used to work with daily, implements that were a part of your lifestyle and your carreer. In farming, those two are inextricably tied to one another, lifestyle and carreer, and they never fully or even partially separate.

I have been puttering about the barn lately, and a few times my dad has come to chat or offer a suggestion here or there. I hope to get things rolling again, not large scale, but large enough that I can work at it and feel that I’ve accomplished something with my time.

It took quite a while for us to heal after the cows were gone. While we knew that ending our lives as dairy farmers was a choice that we made, it was still a difficult one. I cried when my pet cow was led from the barn. I’m sure my parents had moments that pulled at their heartstrings while we were arranging to have the cows shipped South.

I’m amazed at myself because the wounds have healed. I’m no longer bitter and angry at the politicians who were the reasons we decided to stop milking. I don’t tear up any more when I think of my favorite cow, or when I think of the barn cats who used to play and scamper about while I worked.

I suppose it is true that time can heal anything, and I suppose that I am very lucky to say that time has healed this particular hurt, so that I can go on to be a productive and forward thinking person.

Dairy Farming, Career Change, Life Changes, Time, Unexpected Changes, Moving Forward