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On being a student again
Mar. 10th, 2009 11:20 amBack before Christmas, I decided I wanted to take the "Exporing your Small Farm Dreams" course as offered by The Small Farm Institute (http://www.smallfarm.org/)
It was billed as an introductory course that would help you figure out if farming was the right direction for you.
I convinced HorseChaser to take it with me.
It's an odd thing, to be a student again. Rather enjoyable, though I have a muzzy headache this morning. Can't say that the course taught me things I didn't already know, but it is good to get the refresher, and the social things were facinating.
Once HorseChaser was identified as a "Horse Person" who already had a degree in horsey things, she was effectively ostrocised by the un-degreed people who had noted they were interested in horses.
Those of you who know horse people know she falls into the crunchy-of-the-earth type. These were that Other Type.
When we (she and myself) identified that we were interested in cattle, we were promptly ignored by the two gentlemen (who were sitting, flanking us) who had indicated that they too were interested in cattle. They proceeded to have a conversation, pointedly not including us, around us.
When it came down to all of us talking about the facilities we had at hand, we were summarily dismissed by *everyone* when it came out that they were all sitting on .75, 6, maybe 24+ acres, while we were trying to figure out what to do with 120.
No one bothered to note that 75% of that is a a 25-45% incline, they just heard big numbers and tuned us out.
HorseChaser felt extremely uncomfortable, like everyone was sitting there wondering why the hell she was there. Corporate experience has given me a tougher skin, I guess, because I didn't give a shit, and attempted to drum up conversation. I succeeded a little bit with crazy vet lady who thinks we should raise goats.
I have homework. It's a scary and kind of delicious feeling. Between studying small farm businesses and studying for my motorcycle permit, my brain, that was happily laying fallow, is suddenly kicked into motion.
It kinda feels good.
- k.
It was billed as an introductory course that would help you figure out if farming was the right direction for you.
I convinced HorseChaser to take it with me.
It's an odd thing, to be a student again. Rather enjoyable, though I have a muzzy headache this morning. Can't say that the course taught me things I didn't already know, but it is good to get the refresher, and the social things were facinating.
Once HorseChaser was identified as a "Horse Person" who already had a degree in horsey things, she was effectively ostrocised by the un-degreed people who had noted they were interested in horses.
Those of you who know horse people know she falls into the crunchy-of-the-earth type. These were that Other Type.
When we (she and myself) identified that we were interested in cattle, we were promptly ignored by the two gentlemen (who were sitting, flanking us) who had indicated that they too were interested in cattle. They proceeded to have a conversation, pointedly not including us, around us.
When it came down to all of us talking about the facilities we had at hand, we were summarily dismissed by *everyone* when it came out that they were all sitting on .75, 6, maybe 24+ acres, while we were trying to figure out what to do with 120.
No one bothered to note that 75% of that is a a 25-45% incline, they just heard big numbers and tuned us out.
HorseChaser felt extremely uncomfortable, like everyone was sitting there wondering why the hell she was there. Corporate experience has given me a tougher skin, I guess, because I didn't give a shit, and attempted to drum up conversation. I succeeded a little bit with crazy vet lady who thinks we should raise goats.
I have homework. It's a scary and kind of delicious feeling. Between studying small farm businesses and studying for my motorcycle permit, my brain, that was happily laying fallow, is suddenly kicked into motion.
It kinda feels good.
- k.
