By Phil Retberg, Quill’s End Farm

Since early September, we have had the cows in our neighbor’s field just north of Quill’s End Farm.  The field goes all the way to Back Ridge Rd.  Every time we have animals near that (less-traveled) road, cars stop and watch.  I get it.  I like hanging out with cows.  I wonder, though, if anyone would stop and watch 100 years ago.

It has become such an anomaly to see animals out in a field.  Even in farming communities, the cows, hogs, and chickens live indoors for their entire lives.  It gladdens my heart to see that people are still attracted enough to livestock to stop and stare for a second.

I spent my early years in Medellin, Colombia.  It was a city of millions in the 70s and 80s of last century, but many of its residents were fresh from the countryside.  Some kept chickens or quail in cages in their homes.  Some kept rabbits on little dirt courtyards.  Wherever there was a little space, it was filled with a vestige of a time that was fleeting, when more than not, people were involved with raising and growing their food.

Some men made money with a horse and cart.  Lacking fields and barns, they would work a horse until thin, let it loose, and catch a fat one.  Horses roamed the city in little herds, snacking in city parks and dooryards, biding their time until they gained enough condition to warrant being caught and worked.

For thousands of years, humans have had a working relationship with animals that the Industrial Revolution is erasing.  It is a shame.  Machines cannot replace the relationships built by good work, of shared sweat and experience, and the many benefits of keeping livestock.

You all get to share some of the benefits while making it possible for us to continue this millennia-old relationship in the products we make, but maybe at some time, you’ll need to jump a fence, touch a cow, and remember the shared past, perhaps the future.

Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot , Maine that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians publish a weekly newsletter for their farm’s buying club of local farmers. This issue truly struck a chord with me and they generously allowed us to share it. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.