Did you ever work on a farm?

[Cyrano]

When I was 14, I spent a summer working on a dairy farm in upstate New York. It was the hardest physical labor I've ever done in my life.

For the past week or two, the unusual cold here in Florida has threatened or destroyed countless crops. Many farms here are not corporate owned, but belong to individual farmers who can be ruined by just one bad season.

Most of us, myself included, are fortunate to still have jobs in today's economy. And most of us don't have to perform incredible physical labor to get by.

I guess this is an appreciation thread to thank those who own small farms for providing us with some of the basic necessities of life. And to wish them well in surviving this unseasonal winter.

[DesertFlower]

1. i appreciate the hard work. nt

[Cleita]

2. My summer job in high school was picking berries on a farm. I guess it qualifies.

I don't think it's as hard as working on dairy farm but it was pretty hard physically and some of the berries had thorns on them.

[CreekDog]

3. Yes, in grad school in Tucson, in July!

I melted. :rofl:

Does it count if it was the University farm? :shrug:

We were outside. It was damned hot.

[Cyrano]

7. University farm or not -- It's hard, back-breaking labor

[CreekDog]

8. it was a cotton field

:rofl:

[Sequoia]

4. Yes. I lived on a working farm.

It was a school really and the boys mostly did the farm work and we girls did the bean snapping, corn cobbing and canning of the veggies. When the hay was cut the scent was wonderful and if I can find incense that smells like that I'll buy it. Plus the Jersey Cows mooing with their dark eyes and thick eye lashes and wonderful milk and cream (ice cream too!). Oh, and chickens clucking all around and eggs galore. When I think of the sweet corn, the juicy tomatoes, and even the crips cucumbers, carrots, and celery I realize how wonderful nature can be.

[OI812]

5. Yes, if you can think of an orange grove (all 14 acres) as a farm

that my mom has in south Florida. I live in Kansas but I go down there twice a year, at least, to do a lot of maintenance on her small agricultural enterprise that she loves after moving to warmer climes. Many years ago we had a small farm around here (Kansas) and as a kid I worked my ass off doing farm chores. Feeding critters to make them healthy and butchering them when it was time to make us healthy.

[lpbk2713]

6. I picked tomatoes one summer when I was around 17.

I wouldn't want to do it again. It was a valuable learning experience.
It made me aware that there were better ways to earn money.

[jkshaw]

9. We've been farmers for the past 40 years,

and we're still working farmers and orchardists, now full time since my husband retired from teaching two years ago and I from editing. I'm going to be 80 in the spring. My husband is 77. I think farming leads to long life, and a lot of satisfaction.

We raise alfalfa hay and a lot of apples and make cider. We have 500 trees, some of them antique varieties. We keep chickens for ourselves and are increasing the size of our vegetable garden. Lots of fun!

[JohnnyLib2]

14. Nice to know.

And what a nice site! I'm going to spend more time on it.

[jkshaw]

17. Thank you, JohhnyLib2!

[stray cat]

10. I worked on a farm and I still fall under the educated elite slurs

[liberal N proud]

11. I grew up in Iowa

Of course I worked on a farm. Still have scars to prove it.

Summers in Iowa for teens used to be walking beans, baling hay, tasseling corn and if you were lucky you landed a corn shelling job.

If you were ambitious and worked hard, you were in demand. I had farmers calling early in the spring to insure that I would be available to work for them.

[Born_A_Truman]

12. Memories!

We lived on a small farm when I was in 8-10 grade. Culture shock for a city girl but I loved it because my dad got us a horse.

We had tons of chores. Gathering eggs, helping with milking the cows including taking apart the milking machines and cleaning and sterilizing them, feeding the calves from bottles and buckets when they got bigger. Driving the flat bed during haying. I look back on it as one of the happiest times in my life, but I know my folks really struggled to make ends meet with 4 kids in school.

[KG]

13. Maggie's farm, 'till her Pa put his cigar out in my face just for kicks.

[berni_mccoy]

15. From the age of 12-18, I worked on dairy farms in Ohio

[Cyrano]

19. Ain't it fun to never get a day off because the cows have to be

milked twice a day? And loading countless 75 pound bales of hay onto a wagon for winter storage can be considered to be nature's own gymnasium (although I didn't realize it at the time).

It's really a job that can make anyone appreciate the luxury of being an occassional couch potato.

[berni_mccoy]

20. It's the bailing hay that seemed endless. That...

and shoveling cow manure.

[devilgrrl]

16. No but when I was a child, I envied the kids who got to participate in 4H

Say? Did anyone know that 4H is associated with Monsanto? :scared:

http://4-h.org/getinvolved/volunteerresources.html

[WhiteTara]

18. we called it a "ranch"

but we had many of the same issues...bad weather, unexpected problems and no money for the labor that we provided. But the folks did have tax deductions (a passel of kids):rofl:

[pokerfan]

21. I grew up on a farm

And my first couple of summer jobs during college involved farming.

[JohnnyLib2]

22. Grew up with alfalfa, cattle and 4-H animals.

I left it all behind, but have good memories.

Yes--appreciation to the 24/7, all weather farmers all across the country.

[Liberal_in_LA]

23. nope.

[polly7]

24. Always. It was the best.

Except when I ran over the header of the combine with the rest of the combine, oh ..... and blew up the radiator. That wasn't so good ....so I just kind of ran ..... Everything else was great though.

[bigwillq]

25. No (nt)

[bikebloke]

26. A couple

A fruit farm in Norway.

Then farming work on a kibbutz and moshav. Most on the moshav with desert farming growing tomatoes and melons.

[struggle4progress]

27. I did ranch work: milking, irrigating, slaughter, bailing ...

[stevedeshazer]

28. I come from a family of farmers.

My grandparents owned a dairy farm.

My dad raised beef cattle and was an artificial inseminator.

My uncles and cousins were in there, too.

Farm work is hard but rewarding. Grampa ran the dairy, Grandma ran the house and garden. All us kids helped. Hauling hay, picking cherries and raspberries, digging up potatoes. Keeping equipment running, like the tractors and the manure spreader and the hay elevator. We even had a trout pond and raised our own fish.

The farm was about 95% self-sufficient. Grampa took me to town once every couple of weeks or so to the feedstore and the bank.

Sympathies and best wishes to the remaining small farmers out there who are in trouble. It's a great way of life and despite the hard work, I really miss it in my crappy city life.

[Mendocino]

29. Not a farm but at a grain elevator

nothing like mucking out moldy grain in rat infested tunnels. Something Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) might do.

[tularetom]

30. I lived on my grandparents farm until I was 10 while my parents were in the service

and afterward and my grandmother did make me work.

Other than helping her slaughter hogs, I don't remember any of it as particularly hard physical labor.

And even that was more unpleasant than hard.

But I was just a kid. With lots of kid energy. So my opinion of hard work at that time was probably different from what it became later.

Of course all of this was more than 50 years ago.

[NYC_SKP]

31. Childhood through high school. Tomatoes, other crops. Enjoyed the hard work. No big deal. nt

[Prometheus Bound]

32. I used to like bailing so much I did it for free when I was a kid.

Well, I got free meals. It sure got me in shape.

[AwakeAtLast]

33. I lived on one for about three years

My grandparents on my Dad's side were umpteenth generation farmers. We cash rent most of the land now and we haven't had livestock for about fifteen years.

If anyone ever needs to get lost in the backwoods, I can help you out! ;)

[riderinthestorm]

34. I'm a full time farmer, and it gets harder and harder every year.

The labor is intense even with my husband and I more than full time, two more full time guys, and 6 part-timers. We board, train, compete, breed, and sell sport horses. We have 40 horses at the moment. We also farm 5 acres of organic produce for roadside sale plus we sell at the local green market, and provide the veggies, fruit and flowers for my sister's catering operation.

We are very good at what we do so even though we haven't suffered at all in this economy, the fear over the bottom falling out is always ever-present. Sporthorses and organic veggies would definitely be two items that people would cut back on when/if the economy gets much worse. So in order to ensure diversity my husband is leaving in a couple of weeks for a saddlery course in England and I've taken an off-farm job galloping for another trainer in the mornings. I've also enrolled in a PhD program starting in the fall that hopefully will some day enable me to teach, even part time as an adjunct, to supplement.

I'll tell you though, that once you cross the other side of 50 the physical labor and the hours are tough. I go through a lot of Aleve, work 7 days/week from 5 am - 7 pm, and frequently do paperwork even after dinner while my youngest does her homework.

The worst part though is that we have to pay out so much for "invisible costs" that we've never used but must provide. We spend absolutely extortionary rates for insurance: workmen's comp, liability, farm protection, trainers insurance, farm equipment insurance etc. And don't get me started on health insurance!

It's a rough gig. While you definitely are your own boss and the rewards of a big sale or harvest can be extremely gratifying, you are subject to the whimsy of nature. I am fretting right alongside the farmers in the south right now even though I don't know any of them. I just know viscerally what they are going through; tarping their crops, praying for a break, doing whatever they can to try to save this year's investment, calculating, calculating and calculating again and again what the hits going to be. Agony.

[MuseRider]

35. Own, live on and work on my farm now.

It is hard. I don't think I really provide much to others other than feed for their livestock but I do plant trees, protect the small forested areas and keep it as clean and organic as I can.

I have nothing but respect for the small farmers around here who do provide for others.

This winter has been very hard but when you do farm work you have to know it will be that way from time to time. :-)

You know, around here you can hardly even find anyone to help you out anymore. Kids don't want to do it anymore, not that I blame them. Hay work in the summer is miserable.

[Synicus Maximus]

36. When I was a teen we ran about 40-50 head of cattle.

20-30 pigs and about a 3 acre "garden". And such fun things as 30 acres of fur trees when they were about 3-4 years old, wiping out 2 months of backbreaking work. Or pulling fence and hearing the wire break and waiting for the pain to begin.

[C_Lawyer09]

37. I worked harvest season at a grass seed farm and cattle ranch

I don't think there is a job in existence that is as physically demanding as farm work. Nor is there a job that requires as much thinking on your feet, as most farms are far away from needed supplies. Our farm mechanic fashioned most needed parts using a junk pile, a grinding wheel and a lot of imagination. I take my hat off to farmers and private loggers everywhere. They epitomize the American spirit.

[amborin]

38. great idea for an OP! we owe so much to small farmers; hopefully

they can continue to thrive; climate extremes are surely only going to get worse;

[Historic NY]

39. My family had a truck farm so I had practice picking & planting ....

We still garden but nothing like the old farm. This past year was crappy. I was responsible for 15+ horses working for a summer camp for several years. Had to get up at 5am to get them & feed them & groom them for a days riding schedule. I was ready to pass out by 6pm. I did that from 14-17.

[applegrove]

40. I went haying one time. Yup hard work. But I've had many jobs where I've worked as hard. Just not

physically as hard.

[ZenKitty]

41. Nice :)

This farmer says thank you. I wish more folks had an appreciation of the food chain.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. In a kibutz for three months

hardest work ever... and ironically most satisfying too... even if I had more than one argument with the roosters... (Yes they can cut with their talons)

If I were in Florida I'd not mind giving a hand to a farmer... to try to save the crop... and yes at this point it involves thankless hard work in the cold of night.

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. Yes, when I was 18

Probably the most useful work I've ever done.

[AngryAmish]

44. Working on a sex farm

Working on a sex farm
Trying to raise some hard love
Getting out my pitch fork
Poking your hay

Scratching in your hen house
Sniffing at your feedbag
Slipping out your back door
Leaving my spray

Sex farm woman, I'm gonna mow you down
Sex farm woman, I'll rake and hoe you down
Sex farm woman, don't you see my silo rising high?

Working on a sex farm
Hosing down your barn door
Bothering you livestock
They know what I need

Working up a hot sweat
Crouching in your pea patch
Plowing through your bean field
Planting my seed

Sex farm woman, I'll be your hired hand
Sex farm woman, I'll let my offer stand
Sex farm woman, don't you hear my tractor rumbling by?

Working on a sex farm
Trying to raise some hard love
Getting out my pitch fork
Poking your hay

[ieoeja]

45. Grew up on our family farm bought by moonshining during prohibition. (nt)

[Xenotime]

46. I hope the are compensated for their losses. Been to a farm a few times.