JENNIFER K MAHAL -- EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

I know I don’t look it. My hair is far too short for pigtails. I’ve

never driven a tractor. And I don’t even own a pair of overalls.

But that doesn’t change the fact that every time I hear a barnyard

animal low -- as I did Friday night at the Orange County Fair -- I am

transported by memories. Yep, I’m a farmer’s daughter.

My family owns a large farm in India where they grow sugar cane,

potatoes, cattle, hens and a number of other things. When my dad visited

America five years ago, he was delighted to discuss his new aquaculture

venture. My sister gleefully informed me the other day that his new

interest is vermiculture.

She seemed a little disappointed I already knew that vermiculture

means he’s farming worms. No matter. In a couple of weeks I’ll be able to

report on the status of the wriggling creatures in person. I leave for a

visit to the family farm on the last day of this month.

I know that Barney, the cow I helped raise, will no longer be there.

Neither will Fred, our pet bull. Maybe dad will let me feed the chickens.

They have chickens in Centennial Farm at the fairgrounds. Big,

pampered, noisy hens and confident roosters strut around the enclosed

coop. Across from them are the sheep, smelly but cute with their woolly

coats in varying lengths.

Cows placidly chew cud in their holding enclosures, next to a stall

with a very large pig. The hog does not answer to the name of Wilbur as

far as I can tell. No spiders or fantastical webs either. I looked.

Crops in small, neat rows fan out near the animal enclosures at the

farm. Bell peppers, corn, pumpkins, even banana trees are grown here in

patches.

It made me long for the vast crop fields I knew as a child. Every once

in a while I get a hankering for sugar cane, sliced fresh and dribbling

juice.

The midways and musical performances may be what entices most people

to the fair, but I hope while they’re there, they’ll check out the

agriculture. The magic of growing things to eat, of planting something

into the ground and harvesting it for the table, seems more and more

diffused every year as farming becomes something people do somewhere

else, not here.

It’s sad to me when kids think food is something that comes from a

supermarket, not realizing that it starts at a more basic level. That the

food holds a cycle of life and death inside it.

That’s the one thing I probably share with farmer’s daughters

everywhere, that awareness. Must be genetic.

Which reminds me, I need to talk with my dad about my predilection for

country music. Somewhere in my late teens, Dwight Yoakam actually started

sounding good to me. Oh, dad . . . .

* JENNIFER K MAHAL is features editor of the Daily Pilot.