‘The future must enter you…..long before it happens.’ R.M. Rilke

How did I end up a dairy farmer’s wife?  Changes.  Dave, at twenty-nine, decided that even though he hated working at the wire factory, it was a good job and he wasn’t sure he wanted to finish college, so he changed his mind about quitting. I wanted a law degree, but I was twenty-six and thinking more and more about having children first, so that was the second change to our plans.

We were renting a house in DeKalb, IL and I was in that domestic bliss stage that follows intense morning sickness. Dave had vacation time due, so we went to Ephraim, Door County, Wisconsin to stay in the bed and breakfast my Mom ran in the summer.  My Dad asked him to knock down the weeds in the hayfields on a farm he owned in Baileys Harbor, 5 miles away, using the Ford 9N tractor and a brush-hog.  When Dave returned, all sunburned and smiling and very dusty, he began talking about the barn on that farm, how easy it would be to reclaim it and get some cows in there.  He told me how much he liked dairy farming, about his memories as a boy on his Dad’s farm, how this was like his heart’s desire.  The possibilities were there for a good life together.

We spent the rest of that summer in 1977 talking to my parents about renting that farm.  Dad and Mom had had dreams of retiring in ten to fifteen years to Baileys Harbor for some time now, which is why they bought the two old farms that abutted each other. And they put their dreams on hold to help us get ours going.

I had been vacationing in that area for over 20 years and felt at home there.  We discussed rent, the time frame for establishing the herd, and the plan for borrowing the money.  I dreaming of hitchhiking into town with my baby on my back, wild flowers filling the fields on either side of County Trunk A, sunshine on my shoulders, my peasant skirt brushing my legs, pink toenails peaking out of my espadrilles.  Dave was happier going to work at the wire factory because he knew he would be leaving soon, that he would finally live his dream of having his own herd on his own farm.  He had a clear picture of what life on a farm would be like, since he had grown up on one in northern Illinois. But, as it would turn out, his memories were of a boy on a farm and my ideas were more from books and back to the land magazines.

So, there was this one moment, when what we had talked about began to feel real, when Dave called his folks to tell them our plans and good news.  He talked to his dad first, as always, and they shared insults and jokes.  And then, with his Mom on the other line, he told them we were going into farming in Wisconsin.  He told me later that his mom said,  “Not on my money, you won’t.”

He flashed a big grin, but I couldn’t tell what she meant, or how he felt about that remark.

“What does that mean?” I said.  His family often insulted or made fun of each other and I hadn’t learned which was what.

“She’s just making sure we understand they won’t help us,” he said.

Chapter One

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