Collaborating with a Sister on Farm Memories

Collaborating with my sister on farm memories is proving to be delightful.  She is writing poetry and making sketches as well as paintings of life on the farm as we recall it.

Although we live in different states, we do a great deal of mailing of thoughts, sketches, photos and family history back and forth.  I feel it's important that we compile this information for our families and future generations.

I write about some of this on my blogs, as well as including some of these thoughts in my "Country Kitchen" column for the McKenzie River Reflections newspaper in Oregon.

Currently we're working on:

• A history booklet of our farm
• Seasonal memories
• Poetry and paintings about the family farm
• People important to our youth on the farm

You need not be writing about a farm, simply about your childhood home or homes, the village where you grew up, the school you attended, friends you remember.

Riding the Snow Plow

Snow storms on the farm, meant clearing the driveway to the barn so the milk truck could get through.  Father also made a path to the chicken house behind the barn, so we'd easily get there to feed the chickens and collect the eggs.  He often plowed across the front lawn.  I'm not sure why, because we never drove the car up there.  But it was his custom.

We didn't have snow blowers or small tractor powered snow plows.  Father made a large V shaped contrivance from wood with pieces across to hold it together.  Initially a chain from the point of the V was hooked behind the horses who pulled it to clear pathways.  When Father got a tractor, he pulled the plow with it.

What fun we had sitting on the cross pieces as Father made the rounds of the farm.  Our weight helped hold the plow down so he could make a deeper impression with the plowing.  Somewhere I have photos Mother took of us children on the snow plow.

Of course, we had to hand shovel paths to the wood house, to the plowed driveway, down the front walkway.  There was a lot of shoveling and plowing on the farm, but I don't recall any of us complaining.  Perhaps we did, but generally we knew we wouldn't get out of the work, so sputtering about it did no good. 

The sooner we got the shoveling done, the sooner we could make a snowman!

Books About Your Farming Heritage & Memories

Many people write about their childhoods on the farm or their current farming experiences.  Those I've seen are written for more than family memories.  However, start with recording for your farming heritage for your family and then find if others might be interested, too.

If, like in my husband's family, there are a number of children (eight boys), then there will be an extended number of family members who would like a copy of these memoirs.  In fact, my mother-in-law wrote a six-part series for the local newspaper about living on the farm as the boys were growing up.  A friend compiled these articles into a booklet for Mum to give as Christmas gifts to each of the eight.  It's something we treasure and which I think of reissuing, with photos, because the grandchildren and great grandchildren have expressed interest.

Some published books about farm life:


Next Year Country by Lorney Faber
Remembering the Farm by Allan Anderson
Down on the Farm: Childhood Memories of Farming in Canada by Jean Cochrane
Pictures from the Farm: An Album of Family Farm Memories by John Allen
This Old Farm: A Treasury of Family Farm Memories by Roger Welsch

Are you writing your family memories?  If you live on a farm, do you keep a journal?  After I married and lived half way across the country from the family farm, my mom wrote me letters about their activities.  Some were very humorous and others simply a daily accounting.  But I've kept those letters and should compile the anecdotes into a booklet for family members.

Memories of Our Farm Produce Stand

As summer rolls along, sweet corn season approaches. Even though we may have purchased some at the store before this, nothing equals that found at a farm produce stand or right from our own garden. Corn crunched off the cob is delicious, something we look forward to each summer.

I'm also reminded of the years of my childhood on the farm, when we children operated a sweet corn stand along the highway in front of our house. Extra corn raised in the garden, that we didn't eat and Mother didn't can, we sold there. As we children became old enough, it was our job to wait on the customers.

We even made the signs. One year, customers called Mother's attention to a sign crayoned on cardboard, "Corn for Sail." She didn't tell us until some time later because she didn't want to discourage us in our venture. Also, this sign probably brought in more customers.

Our stand consisted only of a small table, money box, and baskets of corn.  Nothing fancy.  But it brought in grocery money (for items not raised on the farm) and for other small essentials.  We children didn't get the money for ourselves.  It was a family affair and all shared.  Friends looked forward to our sweet corn each year. 

We sometimes sold other produce, but mainly sweet corn.

Do you have farm produce stand memories?  And other farm memories?

Sharing a Farming Heritage

As I browsed through my first copy of Mary Jane's Farm magazine, I began to reminisce about my farm girl heritage. I grew up on a dairy farm in the Hudson River Valley of New York State during the 1940s and 50s.

Even though those memories are ingrained in my mind and form part of my heritage, my daughter and grandchildren, nieces and nephews won't know about them unless I record the stories in some form.

My husband grew up on a dairy farm in New Hampshire, as did his father. My parents came from farming backgrounds in NYS.

Although we don't live on farms now, the years of childhood shaped our lives and character. They instilled a work ethic that has taken us through the decades.

Photos of the farming activities bring back memories, as do writings of my parents and grandfather.

I'd like to share these memories and experiences with those who enjoy reading my blog. Perhaps you'll realize the value of your farming heritage, too.

(Image; sxc.hu)

Memories of a Farming Heritage

Since my daughter and grandchildren didn't grow up on farms as my husband and I did, nor have had the opportunity to spend much time on one, I've started a blog to collect some of the memories of work and play that have given Jim and me our backgrounds to cope with life.

Dairy farming as we knew it, in general, has gone the way of large corporate farms. But I wouldn't trade my childhood and teen years as a farmer's daughter for any other life. Sometimes we wondered, as youngsters, if the hard work was worth it. But, for the most part, we simply accepted it as our life and realized we had it much better than so many other youngsters.

Sometimes, though, we couldn't understand why our friends liked to spend time on the farm with us, helping with work and staying in a house that wasn't as modern as theirs. They seemed to enjoy their hours spent with us.

(Image: sxc.hu)