the farm cadet and i

Our pasts are so much of who we are. This is a story from July 2015. About a girl in trouble.

Apr 27, 2025

But we need to back one step first.

You see: At the same time as writing to you here on SubStack - I am collating four little ebooks from stories and recipes I wrote on WordPress. Over the last twenty years of farming I have collected a number of recipes and stories in my old blog the kitchens garden so it is a natural next step to decant the best bits into little books.

The problem is: I seldom wrote on the header of a post that I had a recipe in the body of the post. So now every day I am reliving the past reading each individual post, looking for farm stories and tips, country recipes, bread making and sustainable living stuff. There is a lot. I posted almost daily since 2011 and just finished posting there last week.

As I post here in the present I am working in the past. Which is not a bad way to be. But sometimes pushes a melancholy button.

Often I come across writing from really lovely farm days. They answer something in me. Bring joy. And occasionally I will share them with you here. As they scroll across my desk towards you.

The Cadet.

(I called her the cadet on the blog so as not to use her name publicly).

The cadet was a local teenager who was frequently in trouble and the local country constabulary and her social worker held a meeting and asked if I could have her out at the farm a few times a week as part of her therapy. She was trouble they said. She was the first person to find her father’s body hanging in their shed after he had committed suicide, her mother disappeared soon after and all this sat with her and roiled. She was about twelve when she began at the farm and had considered suicide herself by threatening to jump off the water tower, she had been expelled from school for violence, had been chased down and tazed by the police - she was in trouble. And now she and her brothers were back living with her grandmother - her father’s mother. Who frankly was a piece of work in herself. But at least she had her other cousins and uncles there and a home.

She came twice a week for almost two years. There were breaks - she was not done with trouble but she always came back. Sometimes with her brothers but usually alone - dropped off at the barn by her grandfather. (One of her brothers later committed suicide himself at age 18. The tragedy in this family was heartbreaking). I never spoke to her of her life - we focussed solely on learning how to farm and cook. And had fun always. Her most important job was training and feeding the babies, baby calves, baby goats, and baby pigs and baby cats. All of them. I gave her this job because the drugs they had her on made her so sleepy (and you need to be alert around large animals) and she was so tired, with a deep embedded sadness. Countless times I would find her in the calf hut curled around a wee cow both fast asleep.

We would scoop the poop together, fill the baby beds with clean straw, fill bottles with cow’s milk, feed and train baby animals and birds, and pick food from the gardens. I taught her to cook so she could at least make food when she finally ran away.

I had worked with troubled teens in my teaching years so I knew she would run eventually. But she always came back and in the meantime she turned up twice a week as arranged and I had no problem connecting with her. She loved it on the farm. She blossomed there.

She did eventually run away for good and turned back up at her grandparents last year with a boy/man and a baby in tow. We had kept in touch (mostly over food and recipe questions) and so far she is doing ok.

Here is a short ordinary day that we spent together.

July 2015

Yesterday we had an old fashioned day and the Cadet and I toddled about the farm doing our work. Just the two of us.

We picked apples and slicing them, lined them up in the dehydrator to dry and then made quick fried apple pies for her to eat. The apples off the ground we fed to the pigs.

We found a butterfly – a monarch – in a wood of milkweed – a protected plant on our property.

We stood for ages and watched the goats, trying to figure out how they were getting out of their night time run. Then repaired the hole.

(From left is Tima, The Cadet, TonTon, a naughty goat, Tane, and Boo).

We fed birds and goats and pigs and peeked in on sleeping calves and sleeping pregnant pigs. (Poppy has three days to go now). Led in the milk cow, fixed a fence. She collected eggs and caught lost chickens and threw balls for dogs.

It was a lovely old fashioned farming day.

Then Grandpa came to pick her up and I went in to begin dinner before the milking. It was a soft and gentle afternoon. The morning rain had cleared to a nice warm day with sun.

I have a feeling we may have seen the last of the bad rain. Fingers crossed.

I hope you have a lovely day.

Love celi

There is something so gentle about that post. So hopeful. Farming itself is not always gentle and not always kind, but days like these are what keep farmers going. And looking back I see how this lovely girl must have reveled in the peacefulness.

I will have to write up that fried apple pie recipe too - I had forgotten about that one!

I hope you are having a lovely day.

the farm cadet and i

Our pasts are so much of who we are. This is a story from July 2015. About a girl in trouble.

Discussion about this post