Not So Typical Farm Family

You can watch the news, look on YouTube and internet posts, possibly even open some of the most prestigious print publications in the world to learn all about how farmers live, the things they do, don’t do, how they treat their animals, what they put on their crops that can be damaging to the environment and your food, thankfully not all of us believes everything we hear or see…but this is my first hand perspective of what a not-so-typical Sunday night in June looks like with an once upon a time average, but now maybe not so farm family in the heartland. Defining an average farmer to me is virtually impossible these days so I won’t do that and I won’t classify my family into that...our differences lie in that my parents live in the house that my maternal great-grandfather build and my grandfather and grandmother added on to throughout the time they raised their three daughters…my dad farms land not only of his and my mom’s (some of which was once part of my paternal great uncle’s farm), but also my maternal grandmother’s and paternal grandmother’s…my brother and his wife got educations and moved back home to work and live both on and off the farm…I spend weeks, weekends, holidays and vacations working here not because I have to but because I want to…our cattle are worked by horseback… Here is a brief look into our no-so-typical Sunday night… The horses, quite an array…Dillon – dad’s veteran heeling horse, Colonel – dad’s young horse who is my steed for the week while we work cattle, Stitch – dad’s heading/heeling horse combo, Jessie – dad’s young buckskin mare who will probably be for sale soon (because as you can see the trend dad has a lot of horses but only one but to ride them with), Diablo – my young bay horse that hopefully we get to mess with this week some more. The cows, 80 head of two and three year old cows with calves across the road so we could remove Cidrs and apply K-mars on Monday and breed them all on Wednesday and Thursday. Dad pulling the 460 through the barn lot after working the arena and Buford circle up so April could work with a barrel horse, Adam could work with a young horse and I could practice heeling. The 460 was my Great Uncle Wayne's and dad bought it and had it fixed back up. Mom mowing the yard, I swear her mower is bigger and bigger every few years…but this one is supposed to have air ride, all I know is she hauls across the yard which is a huge time savings for her.