The Wish of a Farmer

This is a photo taken on our farm early this spring, it captures the calmness on the farm as the day winds down.

Many times I get asked what it’s like to live on a farm.  Sometimes it’s difficult to explain to others what it’s like, it’s hard to describe in words what is in my heart when it comes to farming.  I don’t feel like I can adequately describe what it’s like to watch my son follow his dad and grandpa to the shed to get the tractors and head to the fields.  My heart swells with pride in knowing the next generation will continue our legacy.

I love watching my kids work beside their grandparents, Kevin, and I.  I love watching my kids talk with excitement about the cow that just calved, or the sow that just had a litter of pigs.  I even enjoy hearing them discuss the not so exciting parts of being a farmer, like power washing equipment and barns, repairing broken equipment, scrubbing floors at the feed mill, or cleaning up the chicken house.

A new litter of pigs, one is nursing on the mother while the others discover the heat lamp and mat we use to keep them warm. This is one of my kids’ favorite places to be on the farm. They love watching pigs be born!

Some days life on the farm is exciting, and other days are more challenging.  Like the day it stormed while we were loading sows on a trailer.  Kevin was sick and didn’t feel up to working but life on the farm doesn’t slow down when you are sick. Something scared a few sows as they were walking on the trailer (probably the thunder or lightning) and the sows ran over my 165 pound husband, penning him down on the trailer floor.  His ankle was penned under the trailer gate and the sows were running over him.  Luckily he was not alone and one of our employees helped get the gate off his ankle and kept the sows off his body.  It’s pretty scary to have a 500 pound sow running over you.  Luckily his ankle wasn’t broke and he only sustained cuts and bruises.  Days like this are not fun but they are teaching opportunities…..when you deal with livestock, you have to remember they are animals and they can hurt you.

Conner proudly checking his newborn calf that his heifer delivered an hour earlier.

Farming is in a farmer’s blood, it has to be in order to deal with the changing weather (it never rains enough or it rains too much, and don’t forget the hard winters or high winds and tornadoes), the volatile markets (remember, farmers do not set the price for the products they raise, they are price takers), the daily breakdowns on equipment, the increased fuel and feed costs, the list goes on and on. Farmers are eternal optimists, but they are also people who refuse to retire.

Farmers normally work until their bodies will no longer allow them to work.  I saw a video today that reminded me of this reality; it brought me to tears because it sums up what farming is about! It put into pictures what I can’t always describe to others when it comes to what life is like on a farm. I see it in my husband’s eyes every day, as well as in the eyes of my in-laws and children.

I hope you enjoy the short video as much as I did.  This video captures the wish of every farmer when they are no longer able to farm.  You can see the love for farming in the farmers’ eyes; you can hear it in his voice.  And you can see in the eyes of the farmer’s son how much the son loved working beside his dad.  Words cannot always describe what this video captures!  White County farmer gets his final wish.