Not a midlife crisis

So this was the thought that traipsed through my head as I was clipping one of our bucks a couple of weeks ago.  It was completely, 100% free of any negativity.  It was mostly bemusement; I have no regrets about spending a couple of decades in the sciences, and I while I miss some of what I was doing, I like what I’m doing now—so any regrets are offset by some very good cheese and the exhausting pleasures of farm life.  Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris; I’ll always have a unique understanding of the world as it really works.

I think what may have prompted this rumination on my part was my brother E, who is having his own  late midlife crisis, and is worried that if he changes direction to avert personal destruction, he will be wasting thirty years worth of work.  I don’t see it his way, and I have tried hard to persuade him.  I worry that he will destroy himself through attachment to such folly.  I used my own example, which he chose to ignore.

So I carry on with my life as a farmer.  Today was just another day on the farm. In addition to the usual spring business of feeding kids and milking and cleaning and cheesemaking, I did some mowing in my pastures to try to keep up with the grass where the animals could not.  And, before I hit the bed, I still have to give the kids their evening feed.  It’s late spring, the working day is eighteen hours long.  I’ll be tired.  But, to be sure (as the Real Doctor points out), my experience is uniquely rich because I see farm life through the eyes of a research scientist and educator.

It’s not what I trained for and did for a while, but it’s good.  The kids are a hoot.  The young doe that was having conniptions about getting milked is calming down.  The leftover curds from today’s cheese, a Colby, were delicious, and I thanks to my background, I know some ways I can make it better.  It was a warm, sunny day, and the blue dicks have started blooming.  My pastures are not as good as they will be, but they are better than they were, and despite the weather being uncooperative this year, they should feed the animals through summer—and, I have some insights from my training that will help things be better in the future.  Before I started milking in the evening, the sun on the neighboring hills was amazing; after I finished, the stars and Venus and Jupiter were dazzling.  I did not have the real pleasure of learning a new metabolic pathway and savoring its evolutionary implications.  Nor was I present as a student finally achieved an illuminating clarity about redox potential.   However, I received many, and sufficient, other rewards.

And, I know that at some point (hopefully many years from now), I won’t be a farmer.  What I am doing now won’t be wasted. What I’ll be doing then will be different—and I will see whatever it may be with the unique eyes of a former microbiologist AND former farmer.