The First Week on the Farm

"First Sunset In New Home" Summer 2013
Photo courtesy of Photoartdb Consulting
Copyright 2013. All Rights Reserved.

It's a beautiful moderate summer day as we are pulling boxes out of the trailer, letting the dogs run freely after a long drive and figuring out if we can spend the night here in this old farmhouse only half way through its renovation process.  Some of my family had shown up to help unpack and organize essentials in the house plus my father had found two people from his church who could help unload the U-Haul trailer quicker so it could be returned the next day.  With my two dogs, I had decided to move into a small house in the middle of nowhere to deal with several happenings associated with the rich pageantry that is life.  As we unpacked the small U-Haul trailer plus made plans to return it the next day, the surroundings were lovely and pristine green.  The view had my brother's cattle grazing in the pasture next door, a prairie filled with wildflowers across the road next to a badly-in-need-of-TLC house that had been deserted for two years plus no neighbors for a mile or two.  My brother and his wife owned the property and bought it some years back as a rental property next to their land used in their cattle and farming operation.  

One of my best friends of 20 years had been my navigator and helper in the move from the Southwest, so we collapsed in the house on our air beds so I could drive her back up North the next morning after returning the trailer in town.  My first thought after settling in with the pups for the first night was "It will be good to be closer to home and back to basics.  Maybe things will change for the better now.  What a peaceful place to regroup and reconsider next life steps."

My life had been a series of tumultuous happenings for the past three years not unfamiliar to other Americans:  job downsizing, struggles to find a new job in an industry that was shrinking and consolidating.  Over the time, there had a few very promising prospects but then the "over qualified, too old, over educated" thing kicked in as interviews were narrowed down to finalists' lists with even a few invitations to travel with expenses paid to the city where the organization was headquartered.  Then came the well composed letter that they went with the other candidate.  It doesn't help when you know you can do the job, are willing to do the job, have been successful in the past at similar jobs but are not invited to do the job for whatever reason.  All the years of education and experience seemed like a wasteland of time, money and effort.  What next was a frequent question to friends and God in regular prayers?  Just show me the way, okay?

Months before the move, there had been several trips here from my then-home in the Southwest to either supervise some renovation work beyond my abilities or to start some projects inside like painting while the utilities were still off and cleaning up the refuse left by a prior tenant who'd long departed leaving their mess behind.  As my work began on the old neglected house:  painting, scraping, rearranging things to get ready to move my possessions into the little house, I would often leave the house realizing that my eyes were itchy, red, my stomach nauseous and wondering why my sinuses were tingling in the middle of winter cold.  Just put it down to allergies and hay fever reemerging after years of living in the West, South, Southeast, Southwest and Northeastern USA.  It must just be the adjustment from where I lived back to where I'd grown up.  Although wearing a mask made things easier while the walls were patched, scraped and painted a new lighter color, my body still felt weird at the end of the day and sometimes had bad stomachaches or pounding headaches that were marked down to stress of move, changes and other things.

But nothing prepared me later that first week after driving back returning my friend to her home and animals in St. Louis when I was playing outdoors with my own dogs out in our new yard.   The wind had shifted from the South as I was throwing a stick and chasing around the yard with my two dogs who were happy to not be confined inside a car during the long drive.  Then, my dogs started coughing and hacking.  Suddenly, I became aware of the fact that my eyes were watering, stinging and suddenly felt my lungs and chest hurting then my head started spinning.  My dizziness did not subside when going inside the house.  My stomach again felt awful and suddenly it occurred to me.  These symptoms were not an allergic reaction, though I expected to have some since I'd moved back to Southwest Missouri and always had hay fever as a child and teen living here. When we discussed it, my brother had described to me the same symptoms he would experience after planting crops on my side of the family farming operation and being in close contact with the factory farm next door.  They were the same as the ones that I was experiencing now.

It was the smell and stench from the Factory Farm known as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (or CAFO) only a few miles around the corner from my new home.  It was then it occurred to me why no tenant had been able to live in this house for a long time and stay for any length of time without blaming the smell for their departure.  The Factory Farm around the corner was the culprit.  And it was my new "neighbor."

"Crossing The Texas Panhandle Plains 2013"
Photo courtesy of Photoartdb Consulting
Copyright 2013.  All Rights Reserved.

Author's Disclaimer:  Please be advised that the comments written by this individual are made without any commercial endorsement or compensation.  If that changes, will certainly advise the readers.  This blog is intended to document my personal experiences living right next door to a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) otherwise known as a Factory Farm. And no other company, nonprofit or other organization has approved or endorsed these words. Everyone is constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and their own opinion, thank goodness.  These words are my sole opinion and no one else is responsible for these remarks except me. Thanks for your thoughtful and kind responses in comments. Please keep language clean and our farmlands green. :)