32 Days of Christmas: Day 18
No, this isn’t about the song you’re thinking of.
It’s about the day I went to visit a farmer friend, classmate at the time. A real farmer, the serious kind. Agriculture runs through his family like blood through veins, threaded across generations. He showed me the first biogas digester I’d ever seen, tucked neatly among cows, sheep, a few goats, and a stubbornly productive patch of land that somehow fit into a very small space. It was no surprise he went to Egerton; some people know early who they are. Farming was never just an occupation for his family, it was their heritage and business. And life itself.
Farming, however, was never my area (how I passed agriculture in high school still puzzles me), so I visited mostly as an observer, and for the fruits. But on this particular evening, after many harmless visits, their dogs seemed to reach a collective decision: to hell with this guy. They charged at me, froth-mouthed, teeth bared, and with no friendliness in sight. Panic took over me. I screamed, forgot every sensible thing I’d ever known about dogs, and climbed the nearest mango tree faster than I could form this sentence.
I’ve always been a dog person, but not those kinds of dogs. These days I don’t pet dogs on the street or at other people’s homes. I pet only my dog, and the dog in me.
✍🏽Reagan.