Farming Seems Easy

“Farming seems easy when your plow is a pencil and you are a thousand miles from the corn field.” -Dwight Eisenhower

I laughed today when I read this quote.  I’ve done a lot of research about early farming practices and immigrant life.  My historical novels tell of the Herculean efforts required to get a foothold in the Minnesota wilderness.  My poetry book, FARM GIRLS, tells experiences of growing up on a dairy farm in the 50s and 60s.

My husband and I are debating  the possibility of adding a few hens to our 5-acre homestead.  Zoning only allows a certain number and yet we have debated back and forth about the responsibilities, pluses and pitfalls of owning only a few chickens!  Oh my, I remember when my father decided that I should be the one (at age eleven) responsible for raising a hundred baby chicks.  (They were cute when they were only a few days old–not so much later on.) This meant hauling heavy pails of feed and water to the little chicken coop twice a day, opening the trap door for them in the morning and closing it again at twilight.  Not a lot of work, actually, but daunting to a scaredy-cat girl who was afraid of chickens.  I remember how they ran toward me when they saw me heading toward the feeding troughs. (Once I panicked and emptied the pail of feed on the ground in my hurry to get away.)

But farm life, with all its work and worry, was a good place for kids.  We jumped from hummock to hummock in the wet pasture, skipped stones on the lake, waded and picked bloodsuckers off our skinny legs, climbed trees, ran wild across 345 acres of farmland.  There were usually new kittens in the hayloft, baby calves to play with, our border collie, my brother’s horse, and lots of cousins  for companions.

If my father were alive and still on the farm, he would be fretting now about the late spring and his inability to get into the fields on time.  He would be figuring the costs of seed and fertilizer, keeping an eye on the growing manure pile by the barn and counting the days until he could start the spring work.

Eisenhower was right.  It’s easy to remember farming with the forgiveness of time and memory.  It wasn’t so easy at the time.