HERD ABOUT IT?

by Ana Grarian

“Some other wife might wish for diamond earings, but my sweetheart knew I wanted Basic Butchering.” Barbara Kingsolver

One year for my birthday my not yet husband gave me a black angus calf. She was beautiful, black and shiny with the slightly snub nosed face of a beef animal. Two years later she gave me a bull calf. He’s also given me tools and a step stool – tool box to keep them in. Hardware stores delight me. Tractor supply stores being the best as they combine the livestock and hardware. I would dearly love to go to a big store like Lehman’s in Ohio that serves the Amish and others who live close to the land. They have everything from buggy parts to cook stoves.

That’s not to say that farm women don’t also want the things that let them know their family and especially their men, also see them as women, with a romantic, sexy side that is not covered in manure or field dust. It’s just that often what we want, what we wouldn’t spend the money on, for ourselves, is something just a little more, shall we say, practical.