thnak goodness I wasn't a farm-kid....

All,

I mean no offense, but I have lived enough to thank my maker that I only had to work a full time job in the summer months, starting in the 6th grade.

People laugh when I say it, but I was truthfully thankful I was not the next-door-neighbors' kids; when their kids were busting their hump, all year, every day, and twice as much in the summer.

Pheew, I only helped every now and again. Them folks WORKED.

D.

Your right about the work part as kids.


Most of us never got paid either. It was all just to put food on the table for the whole family.

Dad owned his own Electrical Business and when I got old enough(13) to do chores by myself he worked late and I did the night chores when I got home from school.


First pay I got off the farm was in the form of getting to use dads equipment to put in 40 acres I rented when I was a junior in high school.

I think thats where our generation got our work ethic compared to todays teenagers.

Gary

IA Gary,


Unfortunately, ther's a lot of young folks without that sensibility.

I understood early on that I had it good, and when I thought I didn't, well the neighbors always were looking for help....

D.

Made yet another mistake on getting things in order...mt apologies for interrupting the sequence-of-events.

D.

I grew up on a small farm. Didn't make any money but it taught a body to appreciate what you have. At 15 I hired out to neighbors about three days a week working in the tobacco fields. When I finished school there was no land available locally or I may have considered farming. I have never lost my love for farming or living in the country.

That was when I really got going too, junior year. Dad always had a regular job, he'd long since retired from the school system when I got to high school but he went to work for the state. My sophomore year he rented another farm and changed to a different state job where he had to travel a lot. So, I ended up in the hay business....

Grew up on a farm and hated it. Raised tobacco and a small amount of corn and wheat. Plowed with mules, picked corn by hand. Set tobacco in the mud by hand. Piled plant beds on steep hillsides. Clipped fields with a team of mules. Used a cross cut saw and axe for years. My dad never made much money but one thing he did do was let me have money part of the money from the tobacco on one of the farms we share cropped. I graduated from high school in 1966 with $ 1600 in the bank. I am sure there was years my Dad did not make 3K for the year. When I was 16 he gave me a choice to stay and help him or go to work somewhere else. I worked in a furniture store and did construction work while going to a technical school for 2 years. I like to see the farms and to go around to different parts of the country and see how other people farm but have no desire to do it for a living and never did. Thanks to those of you that do.

(quoted from post at 19:53:08 12/08/11) Your right about the work part as kids.


First pay I got off the farm was in the form of getting to use dads equipment to put in 40 acres I rented when I was a junior in high school.

I think thats where our generation got our work ethic compared to todays teenagers.

Gary

Click to expand...

LOL I ws a big city boy, off base at Ft Monmouth NJ. WE had a garden that sis and I helped in just cause we ate too and I mowed the lawn. Dad never paied me because I used his mower to make money mowing lawns. Dad always said it was rent. When I was 14 a guy gave me an old mower that he had been told the engine was shot on. Took it home did what dad had taught me, cleaned and gapped the points. It fired right up. Saterday morning I mowed our lawn with MY mower, walked in the house and told dad he owed me 3 bucks for mowing the yard. He started going on about how I was going to have to pay rent to use his mower....told him I didn't use your mower, I used mine. He said Bull!!! Got up and walked out in the back and there sat my mower. He set the throttle and jerked the rope and it fired right up. He took his wallet out and paid me and never said a word. He then helped me figure what it was going to cost to maintain that mower. I sold that mower to and old guy down the street a few days later and never charged dad for mowing again. But I learned a great deal from that, both on the cost of operating equipment and parenting.

Rick
Rick

junior year, that was the year I started custom haying. Similar situation, I had been working for a neighbor and for my pay I got the use of his equipment and a bred heifer.

I was raised in farming country but not on a farm. I had a father however that believed that busy hands would not be likely to get into mischief. We had a garden of approx. 1/4 acre where we raised flowers to sell. I had to start working in that garden when I was seven, and I hated it. but that wasn't as bad as when I had to go to a local vegetable farm to pick string beans for the cannery when I was about 12. When I was thirteen I was old enough to go work on the neighbor's farm, which I loved and wanted to always be doing even when many friends were out playing sports.

I started hanging out with Dad on the farm as soon as I could walk, grew up doing more and more, still at it now, but slowing down.

One thing I was always grateful for, is that Dad never had me do morning chores on school days. I knew kids that got on the bus right out of the barn in the morning, and took a lot of grief from the "town kids". Even back then, in the 1950's, farming was going out around here, and was not looked on as a "good" occupation, especially by those who had gotten out of it.

I am still hanging on here. As more or less a one man operation, I am the fourth largest farm in town, and there is no fifth. There is only one of those farms that is likely to continue when the present generation passes on.

I was a city kid growing up, had alot of idle time to get into trouble. Moved to a small farm about 17 years ago, decided it's not big enough. Now I rent ground. It seems the more I do the more I want to do. I still work more than full time as self-employed tool & die designer, but first chance I get I'm out doing the farm choirs or helping out some neighbors on their place. Maybe it's just me but he only seat you don't have to tie me down to is a tractor seat. Oops one other is at the dinner table.

Grew up on a farm in the 50s and 60s. Always had some cattle to care for before and after school. Spent the summers baling hay and working on the farm. My brothers hated it but I never got tired of it. The farm wasn't big enough to support me when I grew up so I got a truck driving job working long hours and caring for my small farm. Retired from that a couple years ago. I figured I would keep busy on my own small farm caring for a few steers and farming a little ground. After all them years of long hours I didn't have enough here to keep me busy like I was use too. I had to get a 6 hour a day school bus driving job to keep busy. So I guess them years of growing up and hard work instilled a work ethic in me that I never lost. People think I'm crazey but I'm just not a sit back and do nothing kind of guy. I'm sure there is many others on this board that are the same way.

I grew up on a farm, worked my tail off and loved it. I would have stayed but circumstances dictated otherwise. I've always regretted not being able to remain on the farm.
C. L.