Small Town Summers

Like many farm kids, I have lived in a small town my whole life.  I have only lived in two houses, and that is only because my parents and grandparents decided to do a house swap when my parents starting running the farm.  We moved a whole half- mile, just across the field from one another.  I can literally walk to Grandma's house in ten minutes, and they are the closest neighbors to my parents.

That's kind of the way we settle around here- if you drive just out of town, you reach "Woodliff's corners"  the Wildt's road, Crandall's, Adam's, Green's, Bussing's and Hawkin's. Even the Petredean's, who nearly live in town have three or four relatives all clumped in their little family "compound."  We don't go far, and when the house next to mom and dad's comes up for sale, we are quick to jump on it.  We like to stay close to our kind.  We create our neighborhoods with our families, celebrating birthdays, plantings, harvests, and Sundays together.  If farm families are sometimes stern and less than forthcoming with emotion or support, we show each other our love in the ability to live basically on top of each other.

Each summer, my home town has a festival.  It's similar to those in the neighboring towns, and maybe it isn't anything large, or even that unique, but it is special to our community.  Some of the festival is pig-themed with Pig-tail contest, a "Porky's Plunge Raffle (a duck race with little rubber pigs instead of ducks), a pork roast, and sometimes a Hog-Calling contest (if you don't know what that is, look it up on YouTube).  Other events are more mainstream, like mud volleyball, corn hole tournaments, a singing contest, a 5k run, a triathalon, a hot dog eating contest, and of course, fireworks. Our community doesn't do fireworks for Independence Day, but we do go all out for our little festival.  Donations start the day after the festival all over town and continue right up until the first firework is lit on Saturday night.  Our festival marks the end of early summer, and the beginning of fair season.  

Every year that I spend in my community, I realize that the things I take for granted as part of my small town life, most people probably don't know exist anymore.  Raising steers for fair, a Farm Bureau frozen food sale, roadside vegetable stands, live bait machines, and backyard bonfires aren't the types of things that urban families ever experience.  There are merits to the convenience and speed of cities and suburbs, but our lives are so different that it makes it hard to share some of those common experiences that every rural kid knows.  I'm glad that my summer escape to the country is right out my front door, and not two weeks at summer camp. I cherish my experiences and look forward with hope that future farmer's children will have their own small town summers.   

  

Growing Community

Like many farmers, my family farm is having to do a lot more than it used to in order to keep farming.  We do a lot more record keeping; we pay more attention to animal care than we used to.  We keep manage manure application and take soil samples.  We have to show proof that we are good farmers and not just know it in our hearts.

As I have been going around to all our contract barns, I ask about the neighbors, manure management, and any other issues the growers may have.  Our growers are a little different than some, being that they are Amish, but they deal with the same issues with their neighbors.  One of the Amish gentleman, his name is Joe, that I visited last week has a neighbor that has the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)  on speed dial.  Joe is on a first name basis with many of the DEQ workers, who have made multiple visits to the farm because of these calls.  Joe isn't doing anything wrong with his manure, and he has good records to prove it, but the DEQ comes out when they receive the complaints to check on the situation.

Another Amish man, named Jake, also has a neighbor who is interested in his manure management, but in an entirely different way.  Whenever this neighbor sees that Jake is getting ready to haul manure, he asks if some can be put on his garden.  Jake and the neighbor have a very good working relationship, and they are able to reap the benefits of being rural neighbors.

In both cases, we have a responsible farmer, living in rural areas, who is trying to have responsible manure management plan.  We just can't depend on who we have as neighbors anymore.  They might not be from the area, they might not know about the farm.  They definitely don't appreciate the weird hours, or funny smells that often accompany farms, and it's our job to make the neighbors understand our line of work, or at the very least, make it a comfortable place to live.  Our communities don't need farmers to support them like they used to, or at least they don't see our impact as they may have fifty years ago.  So whether is is delivering a Christmas ham, creating a scholarship for the local high school, or volunteering with the FFA program, we need to nurture agriculture in our communities.