On the Farm

Have been feeling under the weather for the last several days, and so haven’t too much energy to give to this end-of-week post. Also distracted a little because Vera and I are gearing up for a quick trip up Tobacco Road to Raleigh to watch Farm Aid tomorrow where we might find ourselves under some bad weather there.

The concert will be happening all day and night at the Walnut Creek Amphitheatre, an outdoor facility where all of the seats are uncovered. We aren’t planning to take in the full 11-12 hours or so, but we may end up having to set aside going at all should the heavens open up tomorrow as predicted, especially if I’m still fighting off whatever it is that’s given me this sore throat and the sniffles.

The headliners will be playing during the evening -- Jack White, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, and Willie Nelson. Each performer has an hour blocked off to play. The sucker will be streaming live at FarmAid.org, too, in case you want to look in on it. I mentioned our going to the concert a couple of weeks back when sharing that video of the nifty card trick performed by Willie Nelson (who is known to enjoy a poker game now and then).

Kind of randomly, I was just reading about the original Live Aid from 1985, as well as watching a lengthy BBC documentary about it. I remember watching a lot of that on MTV as a teen. The event exists as a weird, complicated time capsule today, with lots of footage on YouTube and elsewhere.

It was at Live Aid -- which raised funds to help with famine relief in Ethiopa -- that Bob Dylan controversially brought up the subject of American farmers needing help, too, during his set. The Farm Aid website misquotes Dylan saying “Wouldn't it be great if we did something for our own farmers right here in America?” when in fact he actually only spoke of giving some of the money being raised -- “one or two million, maybe” -- to help with farmers’ mortgages.

Stirred things up a little at the time, but that’s what Dylan does. Anyhow, the origins of Farm Aid (which first came together later that same year) are traced back to the comment.

I imagine we’ll probably go for at least some of the show, no matter what the weather is like. Even if we don’t get there, though, we’re not at all sorry about contributing some dollars to the cause. Now that we own some land ourselves and in fact live right next door to some actual farmers, we’re thinking a little more concretely these days about what it takes to run a farm.

No, rain or shine, the work never ends on the farm. One of our horses is named Maggie, but she’s a lot more fun to work for than that other Maggie.

(Click the pic to see a bigger rainbow.)