Hinged Gates
A few years back I matched with a girl on Hinge who seemed genuinely interested in me. We started chatting. The usual introductions and small talk about work and pets, politics and favorite movies. Then sliding into more probing questions, trying to suss out values and opinions. The same thing people used to do over coffee or on their second vodka seltzer at a bar, but now we do from our couches staring at screens.
She was living in a mid-sized city an hour from my farm. She was like me, a recently-closeted queer woman who finally worked up the courage to read The Masterdoc and watch some videos on comp het. She had just come out and had that I-just-got-my-letter-from-Hogwarts glow about her. Her texts were bubbly and cute. She seemed so eager to get out there and meet women, go on her first dates, etc.
Some lesbians find this exhausting. I find it charming. I didn’t kiss a woman until I was 37, and she figured it out years before I did. I know what it’s like to have your entire reality flip, the rush and excitement, the anticipation of the magnificent... Suzuki was right, A beginner’s mind is always better, more open. Which is exactly why I should have been more charitable.
Instead, I set us both up for failure.
Within a few texts she brought up her living situation. She was single, renting a condo in a housing development. She said she chose that lease because she wouldn’t have to shovel her own walkway, that landscaping and maintenance was factored into the rental agreement.
Now, this was a woman with a 9-5 office job. This was a woman who already was spending 50+ hours a week away from home. It is understandable a person that pressed for time doesn’t want the added labor of digging her way to her car before work. I logistically and logically understand that. But at the time, this was a huge red flag. Or rather, I convinced myself it was one.
I politely told her I didn’t think we’d work out. At the time I was looking for any excuse to drop the connection. I shouldn’t have put myself out there before I was ready. I was not expecting anyone to actually match with me and now I was the dog that caught the car.
I assumed, quite rashly, that anyone who made housing decisions that absolved them from shoveling a few feet of snow would never, ever, want to be a part of my life. I felt like I’d be an experimental fling and then politely dismissed a few weeks later when she found out the farm was all I had and all I did. I made up my mind that getting close meant getting hurt.
That could have been the love of my life, but I decided for her that she wasn’t clever or tough enough for me. I decided she craved luxury and comfort, not lanolin and compost. I made up my mind she was going to break my heart before I even learned her middle name.
I was an ass.
Open Pasture
It’s easy to write people off.
In dating we do for self-preservation.
In everyday life, we also do it for self-preservation.
I see this in the homesteading community all the time. Not the sapphic faux pas of emotional unavailability, but this blanket dismissal of the newcomer. The assumption that anyone smitten with homesteading is just hyper-fixating on a new hobby, or idealizing our lifestyle based on an Instagram aesthetic. There’s a real doubt of people’s earnestness because we assume they’re reacting to advertising and wholesome pornography, not an actual desire to work hard and get very, very dirty.
We make judgements to protect ourselves, to not get close, to not be dissapointed in the new recruits, just like I did with that gal on Hinge.
Assuming the worst is the market standard. I think it’s because we’ve watch so many people bite off more than they can chew, give up, or grow bored. That farm life you see in curated social media isn’t baby goats and sourdough alone. It’s also trying to load a dead sheep into a wheelbarrow so you can bury it before the ground freezes. It’s also about the financial, emotional, and physical risks. It’s hard. It’s rarely successful. Most people who do it find a way to barely survive, not thrive. There’s a lot of settling and resentment towards the energy and optimism of younger farmers. I see it every day.
But for whatever reason, some of these idealistic dreamers turn out to be farmers. It can’t be helped. Sure, they may have stumbled into the realization through social media, but that’s how information works today. Someone falling in love with agriculture because of TikTok scrolling in bed isn’t less sincere than some one who read Wendell Berry under a tree. We start where we start.
And that’s why I firmly believe there’s about to be a groundswell of young farmers. The kind of Back to the Land resurgance we haven’t seen since the 1970s. Between the cost of city living, the price of groceries, and the millions of kids raised with iPads that never got run feral like I did in the 90’s… these kids are going to snap.
Or at least, I hope so.
We need young farmers. We need them desperately. And if the disspapointment of late-stage capitalism is what encourages more high school seniors to take up bovines instead of blockchain, I am thrilled.
Students just graduating are too disconnected from nature and each other. They know it. They know it in their bones. They will crave the freedom of the barn and baler just to feel like a human being. And I think for that reason alone more people will want the independence and hands-on work of agriculture.
And it’s our job to make sure they don’t feel judged or distrusted. It’s our job to swipe right, put our guard down, and give them a chance to prove us wrong.
The New Kids
There are millions of people following farm influencers and trad wife accounts online. The fantasy that living on a farm is like waking up on a private petting zoo compound you can leave whenever you want and nothing bad ever happens is advertised to these people every day. But for every hundred thousand people bookmarking recipes and knitting patterns there’s a handful of real farmers that don’t know who they are yet.
I know because I was one of them.
There are young people right now in Amazon fulfillment centers and hospital residencies alike that would trade every decision they ever made for the shot at their own farm. That is not hyperbole. With the American dream fading, inflation rising, and climate change swirling - young people want something real, something simple, something honest, something that gives them any sembelence of control in a chaotic world.
Homesteading is hardwired in us, the safety of a life that feeds and shelters you. That we can work on something tangible and rest because our bodies are more tired than our minds. I don’t think kids graduating high school this year will be dreaming of corner offices. They’ll be dreaming of a life that finally feels real.
It’s not my job as a farmer heading into my second decade of pork production to laugh at the 22-year-olds renting land across the road. It’s my job to walk over there, shake hands, and ask how I can help them succeed today. It’s my job to listen to them explain new irrigation systems while repairing their burst pipes. It’s my job to make sure anyone foolish enough to dream of becoming a farmer in my proximity of influnce in 2025; will not only succeed, but can’t fail.
We need to believe in them. Farmers are a dying breed. The average age of an American farmer is 58. Every farmer I personally know is 40+ years old. This is because for generations the idea of success was tied to money, to things. But I feel that Gen Z on down will get over base materialism in exchange for something actually valuable.
They will crave digging carrots the way I was supposed to crave a Birkin Bag, not because of some groundswell of idealism but because they know they were cheated out of it since birth. They didn’t get to play outside until the streetlights came on. They have no idea a potato has a blossom. They will claw their way out of their open-floor-plan-white-walled-suburban mansions dreaming of yurts and highland cattle. They understand.
And us established homesteaders, ranchers, growers and farmers need to understand that farming is an apprenticeship program whether you like it or not. We all need to be taken under the wing of someone who’s actually saddled a horse before we buy a ranch. Experience can’t be taught from books, not out here. And if we keep discounting every wide-eyed kid in the field with their cringe-just-studied-abroad accent as a flake that won’t last one winter, we’re going to miss out on what could be the best additions to our future.
And when you meet one of these fine young people, do not cross your arms and say “Let’s see how you feel in ten years…” Ask them what they’re dreaming of achieving within ten days. Then make sure you do everything in your power to help make it happen.
I understand that we’re not all there yet. Some of us are looking for any excuse to write these beginners off. We’re swiping left on their entire dream, assigning them to fail because they have that glow of the just-converted. We forget most of us only made it this far because no one did that to us.
It’s too late for me to ask the no-shovel girl out, but it’s not too late for me to soften my judgement into curiosity. It’s not too late for me to relearn the vulnerability that got me here.
If I am ever lucky enough to meet a new farmer in town that’s starting their own homestead despite reason or support, you better believe I will be handing then my card and letting them know they can call me when things go wrong, because they will. And if I can’t help, I probably know someone who can.
We need fresh faces. We need to pass on what we know. We need to lend equipment, take chances, invest in their efforts, and learn from them in return. Our future in America has never felt so scary, but one thing is for certain: we all gotta eat.
So let’s make sure we’re setting extra places at the table.
Damn Jenna! I just love your writing! I have for years. Ever since I read Barnheart I knew this was something special! I grew up in Greenwich, lived in Troy when I read Barnheart and I thought it would change my life. I had dreams of homesteading. Living off the land, with goats and chickens and whatever the Good Lord would provide. Playing
My fiddle in what leisure time I had and loving every difficult minute of it!! You inspired all that back when you were in Vermont and you still do. These days find me in southern Maine, seven surgeries later with mobility issues that killed the dream for me. There are new dreams, new gifts every day, and life is truly joyous. But the old dream is still there. It’s more of a “what if” thing now, but I tend to live part of it vicariously through your writings.
The world would be a better place with more like you. New, young farmers, ready to make their way and inspire another generation. Reconnecting with what matters and teaching others.
Keep going Jenna! You’re making a difference in ways you probably aren’t even aware of!!!
All the best!!
Scott
it's absolutely not too late to ask no shovel-girl out!
it's only too late when we're dead.
i bet she has a story she told herself about why you rejected her and she probably never thought it was about the snow shovel, and your fear. i bet if you texted a short apology and a link to this, it would probably not cause any harm to anyone, might lead to some healing on both of your parts, and could lead to an exciting connection.