Getting farmed out

from Country Acres - August 20, 2021

A marriage promise: Through sickness, in health

Visiting with Larry and Mary Larson a few weeks ago was an enjoyable experience. If you have already read the frontpage story, you will know these two are very busy people, yet they gladly shared their time with me on Friday morning. They also shared some fantastic vegetables.

This Willmar couple has quite the story to tell, and honestly, what you read was basically a summary with a lot of it omitted due to a lack of space. I guess that’s OK too. You could probably say the same thing for many of our stories because country people do lead very interesting lives.

When Larry was talking about having local kids living with their family throughout the summers, it reminded me of when I was growing up on the farm. Even though we had eight kids in our family, our town cousins would often come out for extended stays. This happened primarily when I was younger, so I am not 100% sure if they were there to visit, to get out of the house or to work. It was probably a combination of all the above.

Town families sometimes had the problem of not having enough for their kids to do, so the farm was an obvious solution for helping them learn how to work. There was always plenty to be done on the farm and I think they called this process “being farmed out” back in the day.

I know one of my cousins was actually there to work as a hired hand. I was quite young, and what I remember most about him was that he would always dazzle us younger kids with his impression of Donald Duck. The only time I really see him these days is at wakes and funerals for members of our large family, but like the kids who stayed out at the Larsons over the years, it is clear he still cherishes his time spent on the farm. He can still do Donald Duck, too.

There are still many kids in town without enough to do, and there are many family farms out there with a need for workers. Times have changed, to be sure, but

I would love to see an infl ux of kids learning to work hard and taking pride in their work. And, I know, all this is much easier said than done. Kids have busy schedules that often collide with the hours when they are needed most on the farm. Equipment is big, expensive and not conducive to being operated by the inexperienced young. Farming is dangerous. The list goes on. Random Refl ections by Diane Leukam I think the reason this is all on my mind is that I see the dilemma parents have with their kids, especially those who are in that 12- to 14-year-old range. They need constructive work to keep them busy, but throwing them into the workforce has its problems too. However, it can be done. While working at the ice cream building at the Stearns County Fair one evening, I spoke with one of the dairy princesses who appeared to be waning around 9:30 p.m. She had been going strong since 4:30 a.m. when she worked her shift milking cows at a local dairy. She made it clear she loved her work. This dairy princess is in college now, but she has been working on the farm for several years. She started out feeding calves and started milking cows this summer. She loves the camaraderie with her co-workers and can hold her own in any conversation. Here is some lighthearted banter that might have been overheard by her employer. The guy she was milking cows with said to her, “I thought you were going to fi ll my soap bucket,” and she replied, “I’m not your mother, why would I do that for you?” The employer commented, “You two sound like siblings!” It turns out, this girl has multiple jobs and is reportedly always smiling and cheerful doing any one of them. It also turns out, her younger sister started at this same dairy feeding calves at the age of 14, before she could drive. She is still there as well. Of course, some kids are much more willing to work than others, but where there is a will to work, there are options. Clearly, a good option for some is getting farmed out.

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“They just don’t have cattle jockeys anymore like my Great Uncle Ole,” the Big Bearded Guy stated as we drank coffee in the Dew Drop Café.

“Are you feeling nostalgic?” I asked. “What was so great about Uncle Ole and his jockey business?” He said, “He had a homing cow. Like a homing pigeon, only a homing cow. He would sell the cow at the sales barn, and the cow would break out and come back to Ole’s place. The new owner would sell the cow back to Ole cheap and Ole would sell the cow again the next week. Soon, all the ranchers in the area had their brand on her, so whenever the cow was sold, the sales barn took a magic marker and circled the brand of the new owner. That saved a lot of time. Rather than haul the cow home, some farmers just paid Ole at the sales barn.”

“Selling a homing cow sure sounds profi table,” I agreed. “Whatever happened to her?”

“No one knows for sure,” the Big Bearded Guy continued. “The rumor was that the cow fell in love with a Hereford bull with a long pedigree and moved to Montana with him. Someone saw her on a cattle truck with the bull heading west. My uncle retired from the cattle jockey business shortly afterward and became a stock broker in New York.”

*Reprinted with permission from “The Farmer’s Bathroom Book,” by Marvin Jensen.