Farm life…..

So here recently my dad sent me this email. I can’t even begin to tell you how I giggled and how true it is, anyway to me. In fact, I grew up on a farm! Now my parents both had jobs outside the farm to support the farm, but I grew up on a farm no less. It was our side income. Now let me share with you the email dad sent to me (I have no idea where these ideas came from…)

You know you grew up on a Farm when:

1. You give directions not by streets, but by fields and land marks.
I am guilty of this… and if not by fields or land marks, I’m constantly referring to people’s places that are near where I’m talking about. Prior to the 911 mandation, we didn’t have street names in the country. We had this road or that road and I grew up with a Route 1 or a Route 3 address (changed obviously when we moved).

2. You were driving Tractors before your feet could hit the pedals.
If you’ve never driven a tractor, it’s fairly easy to do! Dad’s tractor you just have to hold in the clutch, get it going and you’re good to go. Now Grandpa’s tractor is a 4 speed manual transmission. Yup I can drive that too 🙂

3. Your homepage on your computer is the weather channel and everyone knows to be quiet when the weather comes on the evening news.
My homepage isn’t weather.com, but it’s extremely easy to find. I check it almost daily and if I don’t check it on my computer, I check it on my iPhone app. Oh the day, what did we do without it when iPhone’s didn’t exist? Some times you can catch me off guard about the weather, but very seldom… usually I can give you at least rough estimates on the weather.

4. Forget ladders, you’ve got loaders and tractors to clean those gutters, trim trees and hang decorations.
Oh we have ladders too, but we change the lights in our round pen out with the front end loader. We built our barn with ladders, tractors and chain saws. Yup, you read that correctly. Don’t judge :). When you can’t find a skill saw, a chain saw works fairly well 🙂

5. You plan events around planting and harvesting. A wedding during plant – fuhget about it!
My dad got out of the harvesting of crops long before I was born. In fact, my dad paid for my mom’s engagement ring by selling a load of soybeans. But the doctors told my dad he couldn’t be a full time farmer due to medical reasons, just a part time one so he sold off the combine and got rid of the fields. But we still did and do bale hay. Something has to feed the cows/horses/llama. side note: when my dad was in college, he was a full time college student, farmed 250 acres and had a full time job working 40 hrs per week. My mom learned how to drive a tractor to spend time with my dad.

6. Automatic transmission, no thanks! You were driving stick by the 3rd grade!
I learned to drive our old farm truck when I was 4 years old in a freak lightning storm. I wasn’t tall enough to see over the steering wheel so my dad had me sitting on his hard hat. When I had to stop the truck I’d slide off the hard hat, off the seat and hopefully hit the break. Now since I didn’t hit the clutch, I killed the truck but at least I got the truck stopped. And I’ll have you know we worked all night that night and not a single bale of hay got wet. Then I actually learned how to drive a standard (with the clutch) when I was about 12 years old. I could finally reach the clutch to the floor.

 
7. You can fix anything with some elbow grease and bailing wire.
Don’t forget the duct tape! I’m just saying! My dad actually put a combine back together with baling wire and duct tape. Didn’t make my grandpa happy but whatever, he got it done and fixed it later :). On more than one occasion those things have come in handy for our family. Hey when you’re in the field, you don’t have time to keep running to town so you keep the essentials around and you get it done!

 
8. A lot of your wardrobe came from your family’s seed or feed dealer.
I have a lot of John Deere shirts. What can I say. But we mainly got hats out of the deals. Still, that’s part of wardrobe, right?

 
9. You learned quickly where your loyalty would be – Green or Red?
If you do not know what this means… let me explain. John Deere is Green. International is Red. If you look at my kitchen or my clothes you’d say I was totally green. We do have JD balers but the tractor is an International. The big tractor is a White, totally different Brand but an International was traded in on the White…. and if you’re wondering what color it is, it’s Gray.

 
10. You know where your food comes from, after all, you raised it and grew it!
Amen! It cracks me up when you ask someone where milk comes from and they say, “The grocery store.” Um…. nope. It comes from a dairy cow. Farmers milk them twice a day so that you can have that milk. Just sayin. And yes, I have milked a cow. I’ve milked a goat. I’ve milked sheep. But no, I haven’t milked a cat (name that movie… hint: Falker). On another note, here recently someone said that milk from a cow harms the cow. I’m not sure what they’re thinking…. if you don’t milk a cow, it causes more problems to that cow. And those calves, they get milk too so it’s not like you’re depriving them of milk. So I’d like to talk to this person. Sadly I heard it on tv.