What I know about farming I can write on a kernel of corn. But I’m reading a book called “A Good Day’s Work: An Iowa Farm in the Great Depression” and a little bit of knowledge is beginning to sink in.
You would have thought I’d know much more about farming than I do, but like they say, you just can’t figure out some people.
I come from farm stock on both my Wolter and DeBoer sides, and the history goes way back. My father actively raised crops for many years, though he retired from active farming when I was still little. Even so, I remember sitting on his lap as he drove his tractor, and I remember him bringing me along when he checked his fields in the summertime. We had chickens and pigeons on our place on the western edge of Allendorf pretty much throughout my childhood, and I remember feeding them. I remember the old red barn and the smaller sheds where dad kept his tools and his antique barbed wire fencing.
But I never cared for farming. And dad never pushed it on me. He loved sports way more than farming — baseball especially — and I was every bit my father’s son.
I actually remember the moment I made up my mind that the farmer’s life was not for me. It was one summer as I was baling hay for my uncle Floyd, dad’s oldest brother. It was an extremely hot and muggy day and I spent all of it trying to maintain my balance on a bouncing rack as my uncle sped through his bumpy field. After a while, the bales seemed to get heavier. The twine that held them together dug into my fingers. Worst of all, as my sweat fell in big drops, fibers from the hay worked their way underneath my clothing in ways I cannot begin to describe. It was a new definition of uncomfortable.
That was the day I decided I’d get a desk job someday. If not a desk job, at least something apart from farming.
Truthfully, however, though I never came close to being one, I’ve always admired the American farmer and the rugged individualism that defined him. I saw it in my uncle Floyd, in his brothers, and in my cousins who continued to pursue the profession despite all the uncertainties and hardships that threatened success. Perhaps that’s why I picked up “A Good Day’s Work” in the first place — to unlock the memories that lay dormant for so many years.
In reading the book, I re-learned a lot of things about corn and bean fields, cattle and hog care and the proper maintenance of equipment. And I discovered things I’d never known about Midwestern farms in the days between the great wars.
But I think the memories of the author, Dwight W. Hoover, about baling is what I appreciate most. Here’s an excerpt that, thankfully, I never had to worry about when Uncle Floyd drove us all so mercilessly:
… If keeping your footing on the hayrack was not treacherous enough, you also had to dodge your workmate’s fork as he swung it around in preparation to move a bunch of hay. When I was in college, my uncle hired me and a one-eyed man who was an itinerant minister to load hay for a day while he drove a tractor pulling the hayrack and loader. The hired man was a frenetic worker who went after the hay with a vengeance, waving his fork wildly. Trying to keep my footing proved to be extremely tough; I feared being stabbed when I was on his blind side or falling off in an effort to avoid impalement….
Suddenly, a little hay stubble down my pants doesn’t seem so bad after all.
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Farm genes spring to life, sort of
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