What to Watch

As a vegetable gardener on a tiny scope, I have always had great respect for farmers. When wildlife eat my unfenced vegetables I am only out a few dollars worth. Those vegetables were only going to be consumed by my family, they were not my income. When we go days without rain, I can hand water, but I think about farmers who are at the mercy of the weather.

This long weekend Russ and I binge watched Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon. It is an amazing eight episode show staring the bombastic, right-wing Jeremy Clarkson of car show Top Gear and car journalism fame. Jeremy has long been unapologetic about burning lots of fossil fuels driving ridiculously expensive cars at high speeds across the world.

Despite his great difference in politics from me I find him to be entertaining. The education he gets trying to farm his 1,000 acre cotswold farm himself is transformational. Not to miss a chance to capitalize on his ignorance, he pairs up with Amazon Prime to share his first year of farming with the world. It is the number one show on Amazon in the UK and worthy of that rating.

I highly recommend watching Clarkson’s Farm if for no other reason than to get a real appreciation for how hard farming is. A real treat is also the introduction of Kaleb, the 21 year old farm hand who saves Jeremy all season.

Russ and I were very interested in how much Clarkson was paid by Amazon and as of yet have not been able to suss that out. We also could not figure out if the supporting farm workers were also paid for appearing in the show. We think they must have been given that Kaleb showed up with a new car half was through the show, to the pleasure of Clarkson.

Of course after binging this season I am waiting on pins and needles for season two. We will see if Jeremy gets to be a better farmer along with having a better grasp that climate change is real, softening his right-wing ways just a bit.