Green Acres

I found an intriguing blog today. It's all about a man with three kids, a red tractor, and 170 acres. There is no intense drama or gripping plot to Joel Comb's Life on a Farm, in fact it is mundane in the real sense of the word - it's earthy.

Joel sets out to tell us where our food comes from. It doesn't come from the back room of the grocery store or the magic happy place where bacon is conjured up. It comes from the earth. It is grown, herded, and harvested by the sweat of the brow - though not always our own brow anymore.

As Joel tells his everyday stories, he gets into all the familial and financial details. His kids get the flu. His tractor breaks and he needs $400 to repair it. That's earthy.

There are many days that I suffer from Green Acres Syndrome. Like Oliver Douglas, I want to escape the rat race of the city and work in the soil with my hands like the American farmer. Thanks to Joel Combs, I can appreciate what modern farming is really about but I know that the grass is not necessarily greener on a farm in Pine Knot, Kentucky.