We Need Both Food and Freedom

I recently learned that there are six raw milk dairy farms in New Mexico — including our farm. Other small dairy farms are producing raw goat and sheep milk which I have yet to try but will very soon (let’s gooooooo!). If there are approximately two million people in the state of New Mexico, that means only six small farms are responsible for producing some of the most nourishing food on the planet. The Raw Milk. The Golden Nectar. The Life Blood. The Serum of The Gods.

Of course, not everyone wants or likes raw milk. Not everyone craves the thick, creamy white blood that has become a daily supplement for me. There is a part of my hunger that is found when I drink our raw milk — a part of my hunger that I didn’t know existed. A part of my hunger that has been hiding down underneath damp logs, between the ground and the wet bark. The hunger emerges from under the log, shielding its eyes from the sun, not believing that it can withstand the bright light. I let its eyes adjust to the beaming rays. I wait for it to stretch its arms out and shake its legs that have been bent for decades. It wants the milk. It wants the cream. It wants to be fed. The raw milk feeds a young part of me — part of me that is small and wanting. Part of me that doesn’t even yet have words for what it wants. Preverbal. Primordial.

The raw milk is real food. A food from the earth. A food from the udder. A food that I can watch be produced each morning. A food that my wife makes into other foods. It is the food of all foods. The queen among queens. The raw milk is the river that we need, the water that we pray for. We have it. Right here. There is water after all.

Wendell Barry recently taught me (through his writing, not in real life) that rural, small farms have always been responsible for feeding the people in the cities and I have to say, I never thought about it like that. I never thought of farming as a service for those that were not able to do it. I mean I did, but listen — Wendell puts things in a way that makes you think more deeply. Without small farms, without the people of the rural villages, the folks in the city could not do what they do. I began to picture rural and city life like a moving, symbiotic organism. Or perhaps, the masculine and the feminine. The farmers taking care of the people in the city who do other, important work. The farmers offering, providing, protecting and nourishing the hub of the city so it stays alive. The farmers wrapping their arms around the warm, belly of the great metropolis.

Growing up, I had no idea that we should be praying to farmers instead of Jesus. I had no idea that farmers made our lives possible: The Mothers To Us All. I had no idea that it was our job then, as city folk, to ask the farmers what they might need, how we could support them and how we could become allies to their crucial work.

If we are truly going to live in a world that outlives us, then we need to think about our farmers. Of course, not all of us are called to be farmers nor should we be. I am not talking about placing “farmer guilt” on anyone. We do not need to farm if we don’t want to. It is not our job to do things that we don’t want to do. That is more of the same, more of the old. It is our job to listen into the deep calling of what we are here to do and do that. It may not be mucking cow stalls and placing our hands on a warm udder. I do believe, however, that in this new era of our world, we need to be aware of the life the farmer is living.

Our farmhand, who butchered our pigs for us a few weeks ago, told us that the art of butchering animals is going to die out with him. He is fifty-five. I asked him if he would teach his sons how to do it but he didn’t give me an answer. He told me he was daydreaming about being on a cruise in Mexico, somewhere warm, far away from knives that skin and kill. I don’t want to learn this lineage of butchering. I don’t have the heart for it. It is not one I can take on or pass on even though I feel the weight of its necessity. I can, however, teach someone how to milk a cow or cull a chicken. I can pass those lineages down. I can keep those fires burning. We all get to choose the lineage we want to continue.

I too dream about being on beaches and boats. I want to relax and rest and lay in hammocks and tan in the sun. I want all the pleasure and relaxation a life can bring. The world we live in now values convenience over hard work, relaxation over consistency and I do not blame us for that. Convenience is easy. Relaxation is our birthright. Convenience is comfort. I love all those things and never want to apologize for them. There is a cost, however, for convenience. There is a cost for not becoming aware of the needs of our farmers and that cost is healthy land, soil and food. That cost is our environment and earth.

We cannot leave our farmers out on their small farms alone even though yes, they may love their privacy. We need to check in our farmers. We need to offer our farmers help. We need to step in to give our farmers a break because there is no break in farming. The farm never grows up. The farm never becomes independent. It requires constant and consistent care.

Heathar and I were incredibly sick this last week — sick in a way that I have not been in years. Sinus infections, body aches, chills, headaches, coughs and complete exhaustion. It was as if the year of our farm caught us by the back of our shirt and pulled hard. For three days, both of us could not get out of bed but we still had to. We had to drag the milk buckets down to the cows, clean manure off their hind legs and process our raw milk through a strainer. You have not truly lived as a farmer until you have milked your cow in December with a sinus infection that blurs your vision.

I hear a lot of people say these days that it is hard to find people who want to work. My friends who own small businesses say this. Heathar and I say this. The TV show Yellowstone runs this narrative. I am not advocating that we all need to work ourselves to the bone. I am not advocating that we have to push into hard things and guilt ourselves to work more. No. That is not the way. That is not freedom. But awareness around what it means to eat food every day is crucial. What does it mean to live in a city that relies on the small farms around it to drip life blood into the streets every day?

I just don’t think we know. I don’t think we understand what it takes to farm because we don’t see it, we’re not around it, we don’t have exposure to it — the city keeps us removed from it. And I say we because I grew up this way — spent much of my life this way. I don’t want us to have to give up our freedom in order to farm. We need freedom too much now. Our world is too expanded. We know what our options are. We know that we could choose an easier life and so farming now has to feel like it also comes with freedom if it is going to continue. Farming has to offer us both food and freedom.

I believe that we need new structures in the farming world. We need cow shares and farm shares. We need folks in the city financially supporting farmers. We need a recentering on the life of the farmer. We need a recentering on rest and care — not burning out the ones who provide for us. We need this to keep going and for that, we need all eyes open.

In 2025, our farm will be offering you the opportunity to become a monthly patron of our farm. This will help support our growing dairy herd and the land we live on. This will help us continue to be able to provide you with nourishing, raw, organic dairy products all throughout the year. It takes both parts of the system — the city and the country, the skyscrapers and the barn. The paradox. The opposition. We need each other.

You can find out all about becoming a monthly patron right here.

Here’s to the New Year.

Let’s make it a communal one.