Down on the Farm
Down On The Farm 🐄 🐕 🪿
As many of you already know, I was born and raised on a dairy farm in Northern California. Northern California means different things to different people so feel free to google my home town of Red Bluff.
It’s one of those little towns that dot the I-5 freeway going north towards Mt. Shasta and then further on into Oregon.
When I tell people I grew up on a farm the usual response is “Oh! How nice.”
But to be honest, I was never a fan.
Sleepovers, family vacations and sleeping in was something city people did and I only saw it done on tv. Summer vacation was a time for tan lines from my rubber boots that I had to hide in the fall when school started again. Some like it, but it was never for me. In a way, it turned me toward books as a method of escape.
But as I age and think back on it, the farm really was an amazing place. You rarely get to take part in something that is so all encompassing. It’s a place where you can experience birth and death all in one day.
A few years ago my artist friend Sei, introduced me to another artist friend of hers and the conversation eventually ended up at the farm.
“You should write a book about that farm you grew up on!” He said.
In my head I thought,
“Is this man crazy? Who wants to read about tan lines and cows? I would never write that.”
But in a way it kind of stuck with me. Do people really want to know about farm life? Maybe if it is on level with “Little House on the Prairie”but modern day farms are not that exciting.
Fast forward a few years and I’m with my same friend. Only this time we are in a meeting with our editor. My friend is an amazing artist and by this time we have done two storybooks together.
Our current project idea hasn’t really come together as well as would have hoped. The three of us start brainstorming when my friend says “What about a story about a farm?” My editor knows I’m farm raised but doesn’t know the specifics and she starts her process.
My editor can’t get blood from a stone but she can get ideas. On more than one occasion I have seen her work her magic. Her way of questioning is so subtle but at the same time very revealing. So as her questions come, so do my childhood memories.
I talk about my family , the cows, the hot summers, the tan lines and my pets.
Especially my dog, Chopper.
Chopper was one of those dogs who needed her own reality tv show. She was smart, kind and best farm dog I have ever seen. Perhaps everyone thinks like this about their first pet but I do not exaggerate. Chopper had the ability to really take in the environment and know what was needed to be done even before being told.She wasn’t just a pet but a valuable worker on our farm.
Working with my family and others on the farm to make it all run smoothly is something that has shaped me and will be with me forever. Empathy and time management all wrapped into one experience.
So after talking for a while, my friend and my editor look at me with a twinkle in their eyes. And from there our new book was born.
“Chopper’s Farm Patrol” came out a year or so later. Chopper is front and center and the story is all about her and my dad.
My friend has never been to my hometown but through pictures she was able to create a version of the Martin farm that can now be visited by many. It is something only I could have created and I’m so happy with how it came out.
I guess you should never say never to new book ideas. 😏
