A few snarky lines about mansplaining and a scene or two portraying an often-interrupting husband in a London Times article about living the dream on a farm in Kamas finally triggered The Salt Lake Tribune and The Deseret News last week. Especially The Deseret News.

Both spilled a flood of page one (virtual) ink over the outrage and meaning of it all. Right there with the usual lead stories, the remarkable presidential race, the plight of the Great Salt Lake, the Olympics, this, that: The family’s shock at a writer observing moments the wife could hardly get a word in.

The Ballerina Farm story is that sign of our times with its tug on little girls’ fantasies and some grown-up women’s revulsion, along with modern life mutated through social media, this weird bond between practical farm tasks and creative curation of the business that pays the bills, a hint of resentment at wealth’s advantages, and how tropes have taken such firm hold of our imagination.

So, Prince Charming might have a spot of clay. Is that a smudge on the gauze? There’s that damnable press, always looking for trouble. A short moment of genuine human ire. Now here’s a story tailor-made for the cover, the top of the home page.

The bottom line is this is good for business, as the Kardashians have shown all the influencers who have followed. It’s branding based on the philosophy that customers will buy on your why. “Authentic” is a good look in this universe. It’s perfectly OK if that’s a cold calculation.

The Ballerina Farm grows way more than pigs. The enterprise tilts heavily toward a different kind of production, as it must. Small family farms, once the backbone of American agriculture, have long struggled when left to reap only from the crops and/or livestock they raise. Now most farmers have day jobs.

The show only makes sense. It’s how the family lives the dream.

Intriguing tale

I heard about the Ballerina Farm from my wife while house hunting more toward the Uintas, basically — Oakley, Kamas, Weber Canyon, Woodland, Tollgate, Timberlakes. In and around Park City is too pricey, too suburban, too closed in. We’ve lived too long off dirt roads and long driveways in the country or the woods, crisp views of the stars.

She danced ballet while young, digs farming or at least country-style gardening, focuses on family, loves babies and was attracted to the story. She told me about them camping with their milk cow so they wouldn’t miss a necessary daily chore, and some other tales she knew I’d like. I’m neither dancer nor farmer nor particularly interested in any of the lore.  

At first we didn’t know exactly where the farm was, other than somewhere in northern Utah. But we dialed in quickly to the Kamas area, off Democrat Alley. Oh, a local story. That got my attention.

Our reporter landed an appointment for later in August, if they’re still talking with the press. The London Times writer might have ruined that going for her gotcha. But I’m way more interested in how they make a life in our area, fit in with this community, the store they want to build, if they ski, how they negotiate running a business on social media without getting consumed by it. There is something Shakesperean to me about the inherent conflict.

For the ages

The media mining for supposed meaning of the Ballerina Farm is a bit much, especially the big press accounts that don’t stray past cliches, written by people who already had settled on their reports, accurate or not. That’s a problem I’ve encountered in several places where I knew the story.

It’s a personal issue for me in that I hold journalism as holy work, even as a task taken invariably in haste. Too many of us don’t read the documents, listen only for the spicy quote, are more consumed with seeming tough than following truths inherent in real life. That is, the facts and evidence are almost always inconvenient for assembling into the kind of simplistic, judgmental fables preferred by the mass of audiences addled by, well, social media. I suspect it’s a consequence of careers dependent on clicks.

And here I am, spilling more ink thinking about all this. At heart we have one family making their way in life the best they can, finding a means to live on their farm, raise their children, practice their faith, and have some fun.

OK, so it’s not on the scale of the presidential election campaign, but it is a great story. And maybe the more important one, actually.

Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at drogers@parkrecord.com or (970) 376-0745.