I lost my hearing on the back of a spud harvester. Where did you lose yours?
In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to work directly on the back of a spud harvester these days. But years ago, when my sisters and I came home from school, we headed to the spud fields. It was noisy, dirty work.
The blower, rollers and boom chains were literally two feet from my ears – and the tractor, truck and digger chains were within 30 feet. It was a recipe for hearing loss, but that wasn’t my concern at the time.
My concern was keeping my fingers attached. I was just glad when the spud harvest was over. It meant I had escaped frostbite for one more year. It meant I could get to bed before midnight.
I didn’t mind the other seasons nearly as much. Pulling cockleburs, tramping chopped hay piles, trailing cows to the mountains, tagging behind the corn planter – hot and sticky or cold and bone-chilling as those jobs were, none tested our mettle quite like the spud harvester.
Oh, well, I only lost one range of hearing – the range that includes little things like the oven timer and certain telephone rings. But really, who needs oven timers anyway?
The point is: As kids, my siblings and I had to work on the farm. If I had volleyball practice, well then fine – but I had to do chores either before or after.
If I had basketball practice, then I thanked my lucky stars there was no lawn to mow, no garden to weed and no 4-H steer to feed, but if the cows had to be brought back from the hills in a snowstorm, then my extracurricular plans just had to accommodate that.
I didn’t have to like it, but I did have to live with it, and so the seeds of a work ethic were sown.
I spoke to a man recently who told me he wouldn’t hire local kids if he could help it. He said every time he turned around the kids would have a camp to attend – scout camp, church camp, art camp, science camp, math camp, drama camp, music camp or any combination thereof – and then by August 1, they simply quit all together (because football practice starts, you know, or volleyball, or the family has a reunion, or the kid was invited on a campout or road trip).
In other words, he couldn’t depend on them. Maybe he has a point. Maybe we’ve spoiled our future generations. Maybe we, as parents, ought to rethink our goals.
Obviously, this gentleman was focused on production, and it’s hard to be satisfied with hiring kids when production is the focus – I get that. On the other hand, maybe production isn’t the only thing to value.
I talked to another hay producer recently who said he likes to hire all the high school and college kids he can, to teach them a skill and give them the opportunity to make something of themselves.
His attitude was that when a worker needed time off for a special activity, he was happy to reschedule them, saying, “They have their whole lives to work.” Like the first gentleman, he had production goals, but production wasn’t his only goal.
There is a fine line between letting kids be kids but also teaching them to work and sacrifice self-interest. It’s a line that bears constant reconsideration and re-evaluation.
It’s just too important not to. We must constantly make adjustments and be aware of the seeds being sown.
Don’t misunderstand – I couldn’t be happier that today’s farm kids aren’t losing fingers to spud harvester chains, or losing their hearing to the vine blower, but I wish every kid had an opportunity to pull a few cockleburs, pack siphon tubes through the mud and push cows in a snowstorm.
I think when they are grown we won’t regret that they didn’t attend one more camp, but we undoubtedly will regret that they didn’t learn how to work.
And even though I won’t be able to hear those timid little voices in the Thanksgiving Day school program, I’m still grateful, especially this time of year, that I had the opportunity to experience farm dirt the hard way. FG
Lynn Jaynes
Editor
Progressive Forage Grower
