Can a Single Woman Make it in Farming?

If you follow your heart into farming there are going to be chapters that make you doubt everything you thought you knew and wanted

“Be careful what you wish for,” they said.

It’s hard not to compare Runamuk to other farms—most are run by couples and therefore exceedingly difficult for me to compete with as a solo-farmer. Largely, I try ignore their productivity and success, since my journey is totally different from theirs. But then—I never figured on being single this long, neither—and I’m a little salty about that.

CAN a single woman make it in farming?

Hell—it’s difficult enough in today’s economy for ANY single person to “make it”. Period. Let alone someone with farmish ambitions….

Welcome to the latest Updates From the Farm! If you are new here, I invite you to check out my About page to learn what this is, who I am and why I am doing this. Or just dive right in! At “Runamuk Acres” you’ll find the recantings of one lady-farmer and tree-hugging activist from the western mountains of Maine. #foodieswanted

In This Post:

10 Years Single
Questions & Doubts
Feeling Salty
What I Had to Do
A Miserable Employee
I Don’t Want a “Job”
Can a Single Woman Make It in Farming?
Hard to Hear
Too Pissed Off
A Life That Sparkles

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10 Years Single

There’ve been a couple “serious” boyfriends along the way, but largely I’m celebrating 10-years single since leaving my husband in 2015.

I was never one who wanted to be alone—I like being in a relationship.

Mostly…

I mean—I’ve only had abusive relationships—so, I’ve no comparison for what a healthy union looks like. But I always wanted a true partnership.

Now, however, I’m so comfortable being on my own that I no longer want the same things I wanted when as a younger woman.

Questions & Doubts

This whole episode at school has stirred up old anxieties and fears, causing me to doubt myself and my life’s choices. Following my resignation, I’ve spent a great deal of time in self-reflection these last few weeks.

Questions swirl round and round my mind…

Am I a failure for not making my farm a wild success?
Am I a real writer if all of my writing is online?
If I don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers—or even tens of thousands—am I even anybody at all?
And most importantly—am I so traumatized by my past that I’m the problem???

Naturally, those questions are immediately followed by:

But who or what defines success? And what is a real writer?

Surely both are subjective and open to interpretation…?

Feeling Salty

Despite my best efforts, sometimes I can’t help feeling like a colossal failure as a farmer. Inadvertently, Jackie of the Smallholder Journal struck a nerve with her note earlier this week…

Having won myself 53 acres and struggling with it, I was feeling discouraged and my reply was rather salty…

Far be it for me to dissuade anyone from taking up the noble cause of farming to grow food for our communities. It’s a mission I wholeheartedly believe in and support.

Yet, I have always promised transparency to my readers and I would be doing any wannabe-farmer an injustice if I did not sometimes share the darker side of farm-life. The struggles and hardships, doubts and insecurities that come with taking the path less traveled.

It’s part of my commitment to authenticity as a lady-farmer to share the bald truth of the matter.

And the truth of the matter is: I haven’t been able to produce enough as a solo-farmer to grow my business to a profitable level.

I’d need employees to be truly successful, but without that level of production I can’t afford to hire them. It’s a catch-22.

This conundrum again opens the gates to self-doubt:

Does that mean I’m doing it wrong?
Am I too lazy?
Not smart enough?
Fiscally irresponsible?
Delusional?

What I Had to Do

“You did what you had to do.” my friend Dave told me.

Realization dawned on me, and I knew he was absolutely right…

Last fall, facing the on-coming winter with a failing car and unreliable income from my farmstays—I did what I had to do to get us through. And I don’t regret the experience for one second.

I will always cherish the time I spent with those kids.

The reality, though, is just as the Superintendent said in response to my resignation: “sometimes our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness.”

She was exactly right, too—my passion for real food is at odds with the USDA regulations on food in our public schools. And now that I’m not working for the school I definitely have some things I want to say about those “USDA regulations”—but that’s another post entirely, lol.

A Miserable Employee

Ultimately, I just didn’t belong there. I’ve grown too much. Become too independent. And my tolerance for bullshit has decreased, too—significantly.

Where once I would have bent over backwards trying to people-please, letting them walk all over me—I now have little patience for abuse in any form.

Always, too, there is the pull of the farm upon my soul, creating conflict within me whenever I try to share myself as an employee. There’s so much work waiting for me at Runamuk Acres that my time is very precious. Any perceived misuse or abuse of that time and energy is egregious.

The bald truth of the matter is that I’m just not happy doing anything else. I’m a miserable employee and not content to waste my life away chasing the almighty dollar.

I want to farm. To be outdoors—working with nature in one way or another.

➡️What does that say about me?

I Don’t Want a “Job”

In the midst of this soul-searching, I was feeling pretty terrible about myself—until I found

Amie’s Substack

post last week:

I didn't want a job

For me, this was life-altering—no—life-confirming. And it was exactly what I needed to hear.

In her post, Amie said all the things I’d always felt inside but was too scared to voice aloud:

“I now know that my feelings were more complicated than simply not wanting to work. (I now know I actually have an insatiable, veracious work ethic when I get to do meaningful, purposeful work chosen by me). What I was trying to say was this: the system fucking sucks. I don’t want to spend most of my life doing something that doesn’t light me the fuck up. I don’t want to spend my days working for someone else, for their purpose. How can I live in a world that is demanding that of me?”

Amie’s words echoed my own feelings and experiences—right down to the conversation with her therapist—who all but told her she was delusional for thinking she could go through life without a “job”.

That was me!—with my own counselor several years back. He basically said the same thing Amie heard: “this is the world we live in and you’d better suck it up.”

Can a Single Woman Make it in Farming?

In times like these I still remember the plaque on the wall above my former father-in-laws’ couch:

“I reject your reality and insert my own.”

So—can a single woman make it in farming?

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

➡️Of course, the answer is yes—women can do anything we set our minds to. But—that doesn’t mean success won’t come with it’s share of hardships.

Sometimes we have to adjust our perception of what farming or success looks like. And—sometimes success is simply the refusal to give up.

Because—sure as shit happens—if you follow your heart into farming there are going to be chapters that make you doubt everything you thought you knew and wanted.

Maybe success is just making the conscious choice to come back to farming again and again…

Hard to Hear

This is the stuff that’s hard to hear, I know. Posts about finances always seem to spark a reaction from readers. Folks offer well-intentioned advice without really knowing enough to make informed suggestions.

Practicing authenticity means I can’t always gloss over the hard stuff just to make readers feel better. Some days I just don’t have it in me. I’m too sore. Too overwhelmed. Too scared or too tired to make my feelings small.

Too pissed off.

Sometimes I’m just too pissed off to sugar-coat things.

I’m pissed off to have entered into a reality that forces us to sacrifice our existence to earn the made-up construct of money.

I’m pissed off that all but a handful of the men I’ve met in my 45 years have had some sort of misogyny—or superiority complex—going on.

I’m pissed to be condemned to live and farm alone simply because I refuse to be mistreated or abused.

I’m pissed that our government perpetuates an outdated agricultural system through commodities and hasn’t created programs to support small farmers.

I’m pissed about the fake-food lining grocery store shelves and infiltrating our public schools.

I’m pissed that we have people representing our country who have no business being there.

I could go on and on about the things I’m pissed off over as a perimenopausal woman, but again—that’s another post entirely, lol.

A Life That Sparkles

I’ll never be happy doing anything other than farming. This work has consumed my heart and yes, even the very depths of my soul.

And if I may quote Amie one more time:

I have an intolerance for a life that doesn’t sparkle.

This perhaps, is a better way to describe my condition. Because I can suffer. You don’t finish writing novels without an ability to withstand pain. You don’t own your own business without being able to handle tax time, and that is true suffering. I can move through pain, but I have an intolerance for a life that doesn’t sparkle.

I must have magic. I demand a life that I love.

Amazingly enough, I’ve created such a life right here at the Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm.

I can’t help feeling like this whole incident at school was a roadblock sent by the Universe. A test—to see if I’m truly sincere in my efforts.

And now I come back to farming more determined than ever to continue my work in conservation agriculture. In my next post we’ll talk about what’s next for Runamuk (and for me!), so stay tuned for more updates from this farm coming soon!

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading.

Sending love and good juju to you and yours.
Your friendly neighborhood farmer,

Sam

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Thank you for following along with the story of this lady-farmer! It is truly a privilege to live this life serving my family and community, and protecting wildlife through agricultural conservation. If you found this valuable, please consider Restacking so more people can see it!

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