I grew up on a multi-generational family farm and loved every bit of it.
I loved the history behind our farm, and that the land has been in our family since 1818 (a year before the town was even founded). I loved that my grandma was big on genealogy, so I know about all the ancestors who lived on that land before me. I loved roaming around the farm and playing in the creek in the summertime. I loved living right next door to my grandparents, going over there whenever I pleased, and getting on and off the school bus there each day with my brothers and cousins. I loved living in the very spot that my dad's grandmother had lived. I loved that most of my father's family lived within a couple miles of each other. I loved that every day my dad, uncle, and grandpa went out to work, and respected the fact that in farming there are no holidays - livestock's still gotta eat. I loved that my grandma made them lunch every day. I loved that we referred to them as "the men," and that we referred to my brothers as "the boys."
There is only one thing I don't love about our family farm: the fact that no one in my generation is becoming one of the men. None of the seven grandsons, and none of the three granddaughters. I was probably the best hope, but as my grandma said "Too bad Elizabeth wasn't a boy!"
Of course I corrected my grandma and said that I could still be a farmer even though I was a girl, and I meant it. But I had lots of interests outside the farm, went off to college, then grad school, and before I knew it I married a Northeastern boy and found myself in a suburb 1000 miles from the farm.
I can't blame him, though. My husband loves the farm, too, and after talking with my father he probably knows more than any of us grandkids about the business side of it. He's not so into the physical side of it, but I'm okay with being the brawn of the operation if he's the brain behind it!
I daydream about moving back there, and my husband would love to make that dream a reality for us. Unfortunately, there aren't any jobs for rocket scientists in a town of 17,000. And as time passes, and it becomes increasingly evident that there may be no one to leave the farm to, the men have started to scale back. I try not to panic about the end of an era. I do the only thing I can think of: pray to have a boy of my own some day, who will grow up to be one of the men.