Modern Day Farm Folklore

"Oh the times, they are a'changin'" says Bob Dylan in 1964, and they continue to change. So does the face and game of farming and its stories. Some farms have become cooperative ventures looking to serve more than one family with healthy, happy foods and not engage in unhealthy farming practices. In the face of factory farming, co-ops provide a way for people to pool their resources and farm in a more effective manner. The farming cooperatives take on lives of their own and employ the internet to coordinate and work effectively. The web makes the transfer of information so much easier and these farms can effectively serve whole communities and link up with other area cooperatives.

 

There is a culture of farming co-ops disseminating their stories via blogs, just like this one http://www.normansfarmmarket.com/farm-market-folklore. This blog, for Norman's Farm Market, caught my eye with funny stories of their farming experience, which is what folk tales are. The stories we tell and retell to get our lives out there, to leave something of ourselves behind to be told again when we have moved on. The things of legend arise from the everyday.

This family farm, Norman's, was founded by brothers and continues to be run by these brothers. The story I read on their blog that was the thing of lore was a story about watermelons and a Grateful Dead show. Where better to start a folk tale but on a dead lot? They have tales of their battered fleet of modern farm horses (trucks), stories of friends they have loved and lost, and pieces of history related to this farm that have encapsulated a family and a community since 1987. The stories on their blog have probably been told over and over, word of mouth, the makings of folk legends in their part of the world. This is modern day farming folklore.

An unlikely duo of folklore showed up in Utah Phillips and Ani Difranco, two modern day folk spinners and musical geniuses.

 These two put their heads together to put out two albums of modern day folklore, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere and Fellow Workers. These tales do not focus on farming, but on riding the rails, anarchy and post Korean War America and what that war did to its soldiers. This is another facet of American folklore in our modern days. Utah Phillips travelled the country, the world. He subscribed to many innovative modes to tell his stories. I own The Past Didn't Go Anywhere and I saw Utah Phillips at the Egyptian Theater in Ogden. They don't make them like that anymore. Ani Difranco is a one woman liberation army. She has made her way through the music industry weaving stories of growing up on her own, offering women of all ages solace in her words and the stories she's willing to share. A better marriage of folk singers I've never come across.



“Sing your song
Dance your dance
Tell your story
I will Listen and remember”
― Utah Phillips