Mark Twain’s famous satire “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” chronicles the fictitious time travel of an engineer named Hank Morgan from East Hartford, Connecticut. After being struck in the head with a crowbar, he awakens in sixth-century England and works his way into King Arthur’s favor by use of his modern knowledge.
I have a similar tale, except it is true. I am an attorney admitted since 1989 to the Connecticut bar. I graduated from high school in East Hartford. I was struck in the head not with a crowbar but with a chronic illness. I did not wake up under a tree being challenged to a joust by a medieval knight, as in Twain’s tale; I woke up owning a former dairy farm in Vermont’s wild Northeast Kingdom, where my family and I moved so that I could recuperate.
Our journey into the world of farming entailed a complete cultural reeducation for my family, including my three children. Most American grade schoolers aren’t helping Mom and Dad perform an emergency procedure on a sheep that had just delivered her lambs. Nor are they bouncing around in a tractor, seatbelt-free, at age 12. Or, for that matter, herding bulls, exploring ancient barns, or raising rabbits for consumption.
Why We Wrote This
Sometimes the hardest decisions in life bear the sweetest rewards, as our writer learned when he left a suit-and-tie law practice in Connecticut for a barnyard in the Green Mountain State, and found untold enrichment.
Our 160-acre farm was in Barton, Vermont, where temperatures hit 39 degrees below zero one winter (before windchill, and those Vermont winds sure can howl). We started with chickens. We added goats, and then sheep, pigs, and cows. Most of our neighbors were farmers, loggers, or homesteaders.
Once they accepted the “flatlanders” from Connecticut, the community was extremely warm and supportive, offsetting those arctic blasts. My Vermont nickname became “Old MacDonald” because, at one point, we tended four draft horses, 70 milking goats, 40 pigs, 100 sheep, and 20-odd beef and dairy cows.
One of the most transformative insights occurred around food. After just a year or two of farming, I came in from haying to a dinner prepared by my wife, Jacqui. I looked at the table and realized that everything on it came from our farm: the chicken legs, the vegetables, the milk, the butter. And it all tasted better than anything we could buy in a store.
This self-sufficiency became a pursuit of its own. Jacqui and I would play a game of seeing how many weeks we could go without visiting the grocery store, a tradition we learned was practiced by many Vermont farmers, perhaps for generations.
One day our neighbor Claude, whose family previously owned our Barton dairy in the 1920s, stopped by to visit. Claude is legendary for using draft horses to run cable for utility companies. He walked into the living room, saw our 5-year-old daughter, and asked, “Whatcha eatin’, Em?”
Without pausing between bites of her pork chop, grease glistening on her chin, our little girl nonchalantly remarked to the grizzled old farmer, “Spotty.”
Besides matter-of-factness, hard work – regardless of age – is implicit in farming. Our three children helped us harvest hay, feed and milk animals, haul water, and shovel manure. We offered no wages or allowance; they were taught this was the price of their dinners. They worked seven days a week and learned that complaining did not make their labors easier but harder. By the time each of them reached age 12, our children could outwork most grown men – and they knew it.
I never planned to farm for the benefit of my children, but our low-income, arduous, cold, adversarial venture became a way of life that shaped our children to be self-reliant, tough, hardworking adults. They live in gratitude, not resentment. They embrace challenges with purpose and joy. Now, our son, Joe, is raising his two sons with the same skill sets and love of rugged work and the outdoors.
In his historical novel, Twain contrasted the culture of sixth-century England with the perceived enlightenment of his late-19th-century era. What he found was entirely unexpected, much like my transition from a suit-and-tie law practice to a barnyard in Vermont.
To be sure, the work can be grueling, the hardships of animal care can be traumatic, and I rarely get a day off. But I have found the simple lives of rural Vermonters to be rich with originality, frugality, and innovative practicality. In their unpretentious lives, my Vermont neighbors and my experiences tending a country farm have taught me more meaningful lessons than I ever learned in law school. And my children have learned them, too.
