Gimme the Dirt… On Creature Comforts

It’s wintertime in the Northeast, which means it’s mud season one day and icy snow season the next. It’s dark in the morning when we step outside to start our chores and dark at night when we finish them. In this season of cold and damp, comfort – in its most practical sense – is crucial to managing ourselves outside. A pair of thick warm socks inside our barn boots, a set of long johns underneath insulated overalls, a hat, and sometimes a hood over that – these are necessities that take on a feeling of luxury when we are outdoors in the elements. There’s a difference between feeling “comfortable” and having a sense of comfort. Our outdoor clothing keeps our bodies comfortable while we work outside, but comfort is what we feel inside our hearts. Accessing it takes more than just putting on a pair of warm socks; interestingly, inner comfort feels very much like warm, dry socks for our spirit.

Comfort: that intangible “something” that brings a sense of coziness and satisfaction bubbling to the surface from deep in the soul. Whether it’s “comfort food“ or our “comfort zone“ – it seems like the most fundamental concepts have attached themselves to that word. Finding it in these times fraught with challenges from politics to the weather feels daunting, but we are fortunate. We don’t rely on anything fancy to surround ourselves with comfort. In fact, it’s the simplest of things that bring us the greatest solace. Comfort for farmers might look different from “regular folk.“ But the list is long, and it’s an interesting exercise to list as many as possible. It’s also an important reminder of the richness of our lives and perhaps something we can refer back to when we need to remind ourselves of that fact.

+ + +

Comfort is warmth. It’s warm like the barn cats in their thick winter coats, who wind themselves through our legs and purr so loudly we can feel it through our layers of barn clothes as they await their evening bowls of milk. It is warm like the dairy barn, filled with the quiet breathing of the cows – breath that surprisingly smells of clean hay and fresh air. It’s a cozy place to start the day after the brisk walk from the house in the wee hours of the morning. Comfort is warm, like the feel of the mudroom when we step inside, and the door shuts behind us after chores, morning or evening, and the heat from the furnace turns our cheeks from outdoor pink to bright, indoor red. It’s warm like the flannel sheets we save just for wintertime when the softness is a perfect cocoon in which to hibernate on a cold night. Comforting warmth is the special smiles we save solely for each other when we catch each other’s eye in a passing moment. It’s the coziest warmth, the deepest comfort that we get from simply being together.

+ + +

Comfort is light. The light of the rising sun over the eastern ridge brings the comfort that we made it to a new day, healthy, safe, and fit. The lights shining from kitchen windows brighten my path on the walk from the chicken coop until I’m back indoors again, the glow both beacon and succor. The distance is short, but the safety of the house is endless. Lights of comfort are the stars and planets as they turn above our heads; they are in equal parts reliable, trustworthy, eternal. The glitter of a new snowfall? Comforting, with its white-blue crystalline carpet giving way to the crisp shadows cast by the trees in the late afternoon sun. The uniqueness of the light here makes us feel that we are special, blessed, and the beneficiaries of something created solely for us. That same feeling is found in the reflection of the sunsets in the west-facing windows of the chicken coop, and it’s something we note every time we witness it. It’s found in the glass-like surface of the pond when the full moon’s reflection mirrors the reality above it. It’s found in the cycle of the days – dim in gloomy weather, bright in full sun, close under the blanket of night.

+ + +

Comfort is the sound of the farm. When the windows are open to hot summer nights, and sleepiness tugs our senses, the sound of our cows pushing at the headlocks in the manger as they forage for a midnight snack lulls us back into slumber again. That gentle clang, not necessarily rhythmic but a repeating cadence, means all is well in the pasture. It means the cows are safe and happy, and that makes us feel the same. Birds are creatures on whom we rely. Their constant presence provides the soundtrack of our days. The farm awakes on spring mornings when songbirds start their chorus from the borderland woods. From hedgerows and the highest branches of trees, the song draws us from slumber in the most gentle way. First distant and then tumbling through the woods and across the pasture, their music is a promise of our shared day ahead. Oddly comforting is the crowing of the roosters in the middle of the night when they mistake the brightly-lit full moon for the rising sun. Those roosters are fierce protectors of my flock of hens, and their crowing simply means they’re on duty. And now, in deep midwinter, there are the owls, calling to each other across vast, dormant hay fields. Their conversations are filled with mystery and magic, and we feel a connection that takes away any fear of the dark and replaces it with a thrill and acknowledgment of their mastery of the night.

+ + +

Comfort is our animals, and they are, perhaps, the greatest source of it for us. We keep a lovely herd of cows, a flock of chickens, a tribe of barn cats, and two little terriers who live in the house with us. We know these creatures, and they know us, too. They have their routines of feeding and attention seeking, individual habits and foibles, just like we do. We watch them, but they watch us in return, and the mutuality of our relationships with each of them is grounding. And that grounded connection is one of the greatest comforts of our lives. The saying goes that eyes are the windows of the soul, and we know our creatures by looking into their eyes – the wild-eyed look of a calf flying through the pasture in a fit of energy, the intense stare of a rooster who’s sizing us up as friend or foe, the dilated pupils of a barn cat feeling impatient for its bowl of milk at chore time, or the sloe-eyed gaze of one of our dogs looking adoringly at us because, well, they adore us. Farming is challenging, and the stress of it sometimes catches up to us, with the power to run us down into anxiety or sickness. But our relationships with our creatures help us stand up to that challenge, our interactions with one or all of them bringing a unique brand of comfort indescribable to those who haven’t worked with animals in this way.

+ + +

We are starting a new year the same way we always do. We take stock of the past year – our business, the health of our animals and ourselves, the state of the community, the state of the world… Soon, it will be time to prepare our taxes and deliver them to our accountant. That will require lots of papers strewn across our kitchen table, and usually my work over the course of a few days to organize it all. It’s an annual annoyance that holds us in its grip until my neatly organized folder is handed off, but the thing that keeps me sane is my vantage point – the kitchen table is set directly in front of two big windows overlooking the Catskill Mountains, my red chicken coop, and a hay field. So, while I work on a task that could easily be overwhelming, I can stop for a moment to grab a bit of the most important comfort there is – a glimpse of that view and its promise to wait for me until my job is done.

Photos courtesy of Rebecca Collins Brooks 

Rebecca Collins Brooks is a farmer, writer and farmstead cheesemaker at Hilltop Farm in Accord, NY.  She is the creator and founder of The Meeting of the Milkmaids, a gathering of women working in the cheese and dairy industry. In addition to a small herd of dairy cows, she and her husband Barton raise Wagyu beef, selling meat to customers directly off the farm. Her best friends are two terriers, Winston and Molly; and Sylvie, a truly brilliant barn cat. You can visit the farm by appointment to see where truly good food is grown.

Connect with Rebecca via Instagram @catskillwagyu, on Facebook CatskillWagyu

Check out > INSIDE+OUT’s Spotlight on Catskill Wagyu at Hilltop Farm