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.

Farming Heritage Memory Book

As I reminisce and compile my memories of a childhood on the farm, I consider how I'll put this together for future generations of my family.  Since I come from a farming heritage of parents, grandparents and great grandparents who grew up on farms and eeked a living from the land, I want my daugthter, grandchildren and future generations to know from whence they came.  This is their heritage, too.

Eventually I'd like to compile these blog posts and other memories, along with photos, into a Farming Heritage Memory Book for my descendants and those of my sister and brothers.  Perhaps others will enjoy reading about them, too....to reminisce about their heritage or just to learn about earlier life in our country.

Are you starting to write down your farming memories?  Or keep a journal or blog if you're currently farming?

As Autumn Winds Down on the Farm

As autumn winds down and farmers prepare for winter, there were always a multitude of tasks on the farm.  Some were tedious, while others enjoyable.  I guess it all depended on how one looked at it.

• Stashing bales of hay (and before the days of baling) against the back side of the house to keep the frost and cold from invading the cellar so much and causing pipes to freeze.  We also had to do this with the north side of the barn.
• Making sure water pipes were insulated and covered, too.
• Putting up the last vegetables in jars.
• Digging the potatoes and store them in the large bin in the cellar.  There might be some carrots there, too.
• Shelling corn, in the hand turned machine, to bag for the chickens.  Sometimes we stored the corn in the corn house and then shelled as needed.
• Making sure everyone had boots and mittens to ward off the coming winter cold.
• Stacking firewood and splitting kindling.  We had a wood fired cookstove and furnace, which took a lot of wood.

What winter preparation tasks do you undertake as autumn winds down.  Do you have specific ones you remember from childhood?

Rainy Days on the Farm

Rainy days meant different things, depending on the time of year and the work to be done.  Farmers are at the mercy of the weather.  They can't change it, so have to try to plan around it.  That's not always successful, but to a farmer, the weather is important.  Nowadays, we have more accurate weather reports that help.  When I was growing up, farmers used some of the old folk tale methods of trying to predict, as well as listening to the weather man on the radio.  (No TV and weather maps when I was a youngster.)

During haying season, we had to work around the showers and hope the hay had time to dry.

If we had a long season without rain, the spring that provided drinking and cooking water got low and we had to haul by hand and pail what we used.  Fortunately Father connected up to the brook for other household needs.

We needed rain in spring and summer for the garden and crops, but not too much and not at the wrong time.  We learned techniques for working around the weather and salvaging crops.

There always was lots of inside work saved for rainy days.  So when rain was prolonged, some of these tasks were caught up. 

And....we children enjoyed splashing through the puddles!

Autumn's Colored Leaves & Memories on the Farm

Autumn was very colorful on our farm with many maples in the yard and in the woods surrounding the fields.  The maple across the road from the house, near the spring, always turned a vibrant red each year.  We could look out the kitchen window, that Father built above the sink, and see the colorful woodland beyond the barn and corn fields.

Frost often covered the yard and pastures in early morning.  We could see the cows' breath as they meandered to the barn.  Lacy bits of ice formed along the banks of the brook that ran between our house and barn from Whaley Lake, then met the Gardner Hollow Brook in our pasture.  Where did it run from there?  Down through Poughquag, I think.  But I don't know after that...unless it was Fishkill Creek.

What are your autumn memories?

Have you ever put together an autumn memories puzzle?

Harvest Time

Harvest time on the farm extended from the first haying in June throughout the summer until corn silage time in the fall.  Often the farmers would help one another and go from farm to farm for oats and corn gathering.  They would set up the equipment and bring the grains in from the field to bag and store and, with silage, put into the silo.

This was a time, too, when the women prepared noon meals for the larger crew.  Perhaps two or three of the neighbor ladies would gather at the home where harvesting was being done and do the cooking.  Mother often had a neighbor lady help her, one who often babysat for us children, too.  As Sister and I grew older, we helped with the cooking and serving.

Even though this was hard work in summer and fall, it was a good time as well.  Stories were told, reminiscenses shared, and neighborhood news spread. 

I've even found some photos my mom took in the 1930s of the men harvesting the oats and straw, with the threshing machine set up before the building we called the "straw barn." 

I've realized I need to record these memories for my children and grandchildren, as part of their heritage.  Are you doing this with yours?

Apple Time Memories on the Farm

Apple time meant hours in the orchard when I was growing up. Although Father was a dairy farmer, he also operated an orchard and grew apples to sell. One of my tasks was going to the orchard after school and on weekends to pick apples for our use and to send to market.


The views from the orchard were spectacular since it was near the top of the "Big Hill" on our farm. From there we could view the Hudson River Valley in the distance and, on clear days, the Catskill Mountains west of the river.

Father initially purchased a second farm adjoining ours.  It had an old orchard, but the trees did produce.  There were old varieties including Baldwins.  Father decided to expand and planted 500 trees in the next field which was on our original farm on the "Big Hill."  These consisted or Red and Yellow Delicious, Mcintosh and Cortlands.

From somewhere he purchased a sprayer pulled behind the tractor.  He learned about apple growing and marketing and did most of that work himself.  It was his hobby turned productive.

In the fall, the rest of the family was recruited as we picked and picked and picked.  A neighbor lady, named Kate, came each fall to pick apples.  Kate did housework and yard work for various people to earn her living.  She seemed to enjoy climbing up the ladder into the trees and picking apples.

When apple time comes around each fall, my apple memories surface.  The hard work translated into the work ethic instilled into farm children of those days. 

You also might want to check out: Apples, Apples Everywhere - Favorite Recipes from America's Orchards.