We know what you are and we don't like it.

Farmer.
Redneck.
Idiot.
Dirty.
Low-class.

I'm tired of it.  It hurts, to be honest.  I am tired of the negative judgment farmers get when they just want to do their job.  Maybe we farmers have a negative judgment about you!  Probably not though...we're nice people.

I'm always amazed by the responses & looks I get when people see things I am doing, usually when "prepping" a garden.

That's a lot of work, why would you do all that?
That was a nice lawn, why did you mess it up?
Why are you getting manure to put on your garden?  That's disgusting.
Why don't you just buy fertilizer?
Why why why why?

Aggravating.  The so-called "city-slickers" are always appalled when farmers scoff at them.  It's not to say the farmers are doing things the appropriate ways either - many farmers have disgraced the business of farming for years to come, and it will take effort on both sides to win the other over.  For example, let's run through 4 quick answers from the above questions:

1) Work is part of life.  Being lazy in life is one of the most wasteful things one could do with a life.
2) A "nice lawn" cracks me up.  I have realized Americans are so perverted in what we call "wealth" (which is not really wealth, but that's a different discussion altogether).  We bask in the greatness of our green lawn, which we pour hundreds or thousands of dollars into every year, to gain _______.  That's right.  Absolutely nothing.  Except praise and bragging.
3) Manure is smelly.  So how do you get rid of it?  You can let it sit by itself, where bacteria will soon enter it, cause diseases to run off when it rains, getting into the soil, plants, and eventually entering your environment in some way.  Or, you can take that manure, properly compost it so it heats up, kills bad bacteria, and place this compost on a garden bed, which will properly fertilize the garden as God wanted.
4) I don't know - would you eat meat that was 2 years old, but was treated with a chemical so it was "still edible?"


So maybe I'm standing on my soapbox now, screaming a little too loudly.  I am just tired of it though.  People do not like things different, simply because they do not like things different.  It's the dumbest argument I've ever heard, but people stand by it. 

So most of this above was for prepping a garden.  This is like, I dunno, 1/12th of what a farmer will normally do.  So I could go on, but I won't.  Instead, I will go to sleep and wake tomorrow, with this in the back of my mind.  I'll do what I do while people look on, and I'll do it with a proud but heavy heart.