The Dirt

I spent the morning trying to tie up some loose ends at our farm so I could run over to one of the farms that I consult for, we needed to change the ingredients in the recipe they feed their cows. As usual I was running about an hour behind schedule and still not out the door, I was going to quick feed some grain to a pen of heifers then run down to the house change clothes and hit the road. Just as I headed into the barn, I see my son bounding toward me, I said, “What the heck?” He said, “Half day today, I forgot to tell you!” with a big smile on his face. I said great why don’t you come with me to make a “farm call,” that’s what we call it when I go to see other farmers. He helped me feed the grain to the heifers, I am always impressed that even though he just turned nine, he can lift a 50 lb sack of grain. A tough little physique is one of the many benefits of growing up on a farm.

I love when he comes with me to visit other farms, he gets to meet new people and see the farms of my customers, they are all really good farmers. It is good for my son to see how every farm is so different, the barns, the parlors, the color of the tractors, even the color of the cows since all of my customers have big black and white Holsteins, we have smaller all brown Jerseys. As we walked through the office on the farm we visited today, he noticed the many old pictures on the wall, pictures dating back to the 40’s, the farm we visited has been in their family since before then. It is a true family farm with three generations working side by side. It is also a modern farm with 100’s of cows and a high-tech system to monitor the health of the cows every time they are milked. My son thinks he might want to be an engineer so he is always drawn to the shiny stainless steel and anything computerized. We finished the changes we needed to make, and helped set some equipment as they brought in the first load of corn from the field. There is no time more exciting (or stressful) than harvest, and this farm family has some very busy days ahead. We drove out their driveway glad we could help.

On the way home we started talking about what’s different since the days when my Grandpa Everett farmed, back in the 30’s and 40’s similar to those pictures we had just looked at on the wall of a new modern dairy farm. He said, “Oh mom, I think so many things are different, mostly farming is much more umm… high-tech these days. We have bigger tractors, milking parlors, the barns are different now, yeah I think a lot has changed.” I agreed and asked him how it might be different for a kid like him? He thought about it and said, “I think back then the kids really had to work hard.” I thought that was really interesting because I think he works pretty hard, but he’s right those kids had to work very hard. I asked him what he thought might be the same, he paused and said, “The dirt… Mom, I think the dirt is the same.”

This unexpectedly caused a flood of emotion for me. Many of us who farm using modern technology and science these days feel we have to defend our decisions. There are Journalists, Environmentalists and Food Activists who are trying to convince the public that we are not doing a good job protecting the piece of the earth we tend to. But, the truth is there is nothing more important to us that protecting what we love, our families, our animals, and our dirt. Even a nine year old can see that hasn’t changed.