Wife's Teen Life Vs. My Teen Life

ClassicRockr

ClassicRockr

Well-known Member
I remember, after meeting my wife, explaining to her what my teenage "farm life" was like.........she didn't have a clue, being raised in a suburb outside Detroit. No farming at all around her.

So, this is how I explained those years:
"Raising hogs, chickens (for a short while) and doing crops sure wasn't the easy suburban lifestyle you had.
During those sub-zero Michigan winters w/inches of snow on the ground, you were in a nice/cozy/warm house getting ready for school in the sub-zero winter, I was getting up at 5:30 AM each morning, in Indiana, to take buckets of hot water down to the hogs to drink. Had to break the ice in their troughs, dump out the water if it was dirty and pour the hot water in. For morning feeding, even on those cold/snowy days, I'd have to mix some corn meal with cold water and dump into another trough. For the even feeding, it was a wheel barrel filled with some field corn and dump it into the pen. After watering/feeding the hogs, got a scoop of chicken feed and thru into their house. Would pour some hot water into their water containers also. So, after the AM feeding/watering, I could go back to the house, try and thaw out and then do what you did for "getting ready for school". During the summer months, when you were going to your local Bandstand to listen to "live" music w/your girlfriend or going to the family lake cottage and enjoying boating, I was sweating in a corn field, hay field and continuing to take care of our hogs. Yes, keeping the tractor wheels straight while plowing a field, getting sweaty/dirty from dust why disking a field, keeping the planter straight while planting crops and bailing/stacking hay on a wagon in 90+ heat wasn't fun, but was part of farming. Guess you just never knew how good you had it those years!" I said with a smile.

For you Forum folks, when I say "taking care of hogs", there were things, besides feeding/watering, we had to do that I won't get into here.......especial with newborn litters and little piglets. And, these "things" were a must. Anyone who raised hogs for market will know. (When I told my wife about the entire "hog raising" thing, she said "Yuk".

Wife took Driver's Ed and I took Farm Ed. "Farm Ed, meaning John Deere and Farmall tractor as well as "dirt road" station wagon driving with my step-dad. That station wagon had standard brakes and I wound up in a neighbors corn field one time. Rounding a curve, hit the brakes, but not hard enough, into/out of a small ditch and right into that field. Corn had already been picked, so was lucky there.

A few weekends during the summer, I was able to visit my cousin's...........and that was GREAT!! No chores and no sweat pouring off of me to do!

So, what your "younger life" different from your husband or wife's?
 

I did a lot of work on a farm and the wife was raised on a farm so we had quite a bit in common. I too, first learned to drive a John Deere narrow front wheel tractor. Damn near killed myself when I thought I had it in low gear and I had it in a high gear. Took off like a scared rabbit and it was a couple minutes before I got it under control.

i also worked for 50 cents an hour throwing hay bales on the wagons and then piling them in the loft.Not fun at all.:mad:
Wife had nine sisters and five brothers and they all had their own jobs on the farm to do. Lee, my wife's Dad, had my wife and a couple of the boys do the milking and then off to school, which Lee was the bus driver. No fooling around on this bus.

Good subject, ClassicRockr. Enjoy talking about the " good ole days."
 
Funny thing, I went from being a "hog farmer" back then to being a rodeo cowboy in my mid 30's. Shocked the heck out of my step-parents back on the old farm. I was fairly sure I could ride a horse, from riding a neighbors back in-the-day, but surprised myself that I could swing a rope as well as I did. A good horse, Roping saddle and gear, good "Heading" rope and off to Roping School I went. Taking care of a QH was much easier and cleaner than taking care of hogs! When I joined the Navy in '68, I never went back to farming again. I know about cattle also b/c local farmers raised Angus cattle and Duroc, Chester White, Hampshire and some other breeds of hogs.around us. We had Duroc. Funny, wife and I can go into our local steakhouse (Longhorn) and I know what all the cowboy décor is and the different cuts of beef shown on a wall inside the restaurant. I also know, after all these years, the different cuts of pork. Been to, what is called, "the biggest stockyards in the U.S.", Oklahoma City Stockyards. Man, what a huge stockyards and great steak restaurant!
 

Pappy said:
i also worked for 50 cents an hour throwing hay bales on the wagons and then piling them in the loft.Not fun at all.:mad:
Click to expand...

Pappy-My grandsons spend their summers doing that. The oldest started when he was 15 or so,working for the guy who was my horse trainer,an ex rodeo guy turned mortician and hay farmer. He (my grandson) has asthma and oh,he used to get so sick doing that! Did it anyway. When the younger two talked to the guy about working this summer,he said "You guys don`t have hay fever like your brother,do you?" LOL. They made really good money doing it this summer-worked not only for him but word got around about what hard workers they are so they picked up several other jobs as well. The boys love it because it`s such great conditioning for football :)
 
Rockr, I grew up on a large dairy farm in NE Ohio .(east of Cleveland) ..and know of what you speak.
I didn't do any heavy work though in those years, being just a kid! :p ..but I did drive the tractor during haying season while all the men threw the bales of hay on the wagon.
And I was only 9-10 years old when I started doing that... no pay involved.. labor of love ..:love_heart:

Life on the farm ... they were the greatest days of my life.

... and I loved the many pigs we had... thought they were cute! lol - I never feared them.
 
You guys talk about raising the hogs. I have also seen that as a young boy. But a few years back I actually worked in a hog slaughterhouse. Smithfield Packing. That's where all those wonderful "smithfield hams, bacon, porkchops, and basically all pork products you find in your supermarket come from. The stories I could tell about that experience would really shock and amaze some of you.
 
Ronnie, the word "shock" you used is why I didn't say anymore about how raising hogs is done. There are parts that would "gross-out" some ladies on here! A lot of people in the cities just want to go to a grocery store and buy their wrapped-up meat, they don't want to know at all the process of how it got in that Meat Case! The animals on our farm, except for our dogs of course, were Market animals.........not raised as pets! Shoot, our freezer in the basement was full of pork and it didn't come from the local supermarket! One time I visited a cheese making plant. They made cottage cheese and other cheese products. Man, the smell almost made me get sick!

I seen a bull get dehorned at a Sale Barn once. Boy, another sight many ladies on here would never want to see (not even my wife). After they dehorned it, the put some type of white power into each horn to stop the bleeding (coagulate the blood).

I've seen a horse be "put down" before. Didn't bother me, because I knew it had to be done.

Oh, and I forget to tell about the wood we used in our furnace in the basement: step-dad had a chainsaw that we'd cut down one of the trees in our small woods with. He'd cut some of the branches off with that saw and I was use an ax to help him. He would cut the tree up into sections and we'd stack those sections up inside the barn (so not to get wet). After school and after feeding/watering, I bring some of those sections down to the house in the old wheel barrel, use an ax, long handled sludge hammer and steel wedge to split up those sections. Then I would toss each piece thru the basement window into the wood/coal bin next to the furnace. After I cut up what was in the wheel barrel, I'd have to go into the basement and straighten out the chucks of wood that I had tossed in there. Man, what a job!

I would also help my dad put down oil on the dirt road, next to our house, to keep the dust down when people would drive by. A cart, pulled with a tractor, w/a barrel of oil in it. Once we unscrewed the cover on the barrel, we took off with the tractor on the road, spreading the oil on the road.

Dang, I'm making myself TIRED just thinking/writing about the stuff (hard labor) I done with my dad on that farm!
 
I'm in the south now, Soth Carolina, but was raised in the north, connecticut. But use to come south every year as a young boy to stay with grandfather for summer. I've seen and know that being raised on a farm is no joke. Back then farm work was NEVER done. Farmers did so much hard work to help feed this country and barely got anything for their efforts. I'm sure it's much better for the farmer now adays with all the modern equipment they have nowadays such as air-condition tractors and such. But when I was a young boy the farmer caught HELL!!
 
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This was a brand new Crops Sprayer that a farmer buddy of mine back in Indiana bought. Don't know how much he paid for it, but REALLY looks "high tech"! This photo was taken by me in Spring of 2008 when wife and I were in Indiana. Yes, the farming of today sure isn't the way it was back in the 60's!
 
I'm really kind of surprised that there are ex/former farm people on here. Although, a lot of farmers and ranchers use a computer today for breeding livestock, doing crops and other things on farms/ranches. It's really amazing! When wife and I went to the Stockyards in Ft. Collins, CO, Cattle Buyers were using cell phones during the auction and while the auctioneer was doing his thing, a girl was sitting beside him doing her job on a computer. The magazine, Western Horseman sells software for breeding cattle, horses, whatever, as well as software for other farm and ranch stuff. Maybe years ago, computers were for "big city" purposes, but not anymore!

The "buddy" farmers I knew when I was in high school, all took over their parents farms. Only thing is, most of them got rid of the livestock and only grow crops now. Livestock can be expensive to do for Market selling.
 
My Dad, who was a good football player in a small rural school, use to tell the story that the Coach had all the football players go to help pick cotton on Dad's family farm so that he could have time to play football.
 

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