Down On The Farm

The year was 1980. We were living in Ohio at the time. The house we were renting belonged to missionaries who were coming back home on furlough and needed their home back.

My husband got the idea that we should live off the land and so we signed a year's lease on a farm in Batavia, Ohio. The farm house itself was over 100 years old.

So in the spring of 1980 we packed up our four boys (3 of them preschool age), a dog named Danger, and a cat named Tom and our belongings and moved to a 75 acre farm.

What were we thinking??????

Our 4 sons, Scott, Aaron, Neal, and our youngest Mark in front.

 It was a farmer's paradise. But we were not farmers. Along with our dog and cat we bought 21 chickens. One was a temperamental old black rooster. We bought a pig, who the boys named Seaweed Harry, a milk goat named Nanny, and 4 Mallard Ducks. 

The house was old with no insulation which was not good for cold snowy Ohio. It still had the original old farm stove in the kitchen where you would put wood to cook the food and a wood stove in the front room that we used for heat. Thankfully, it did have indoor plumbing.

LIFE WAS EXCITING.

As I said, it was a farmer's paradise. On the farm there were fruit trees of every kind - apple, cherry, pear. There were blackberry and strawberry patches, a huge garden spot with room to grow every kind of vegetable you could imagine. 

Jerry, Aaron, and Neal working in the garden

We were going to eat fresh eggs, drink goat milk, butcher the hog in the fall and raise a big garden to help feed our family. 

Our oldest son, Scott, and Neal's job was to get the eggs each day. I don't know how many times the hens would peck them and the ducks and rooster would chase them.

And Seaweed Harry was such a  "lovable" pig. Every time the boys had to feed him or clean the stall he was in, he would bite their ankles. Someone told us Seaweed Harry bit them to show love. When we finally had him butchered, our boys cheered and every time we had pork for a meal, they would stab their meat with their forks, saying, "Take that Seaweed Harry."

Neal and Scott gathering eggs

And our goat, Nanny. Goats are not like cows. They get use to one person milking them and they do not like it when someone else tries to milk them. So I got stuck with the wonderful job of milking a smelly old goat every morning and every evening. 

Nanny and Aaron

And then Fall came. Harvesting Time. "We shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves." I didn't know how to can and so I froze all of the fruit and vegetables and made jelly that wouldn't jell and had to pick the fruit trees before the birds ate the fruit and harvest the vegetables. 

 

Scott, Neal, and Mark

Aaron and Mark

The bad part about Fall, our oldest son went back to school and Jerry was going to Bible College, working at the church, and working second shift at General Electric while I took care of the farm,  four boys and everything else.

The Farmer relaxing after a hard day's work. Notice those stylish clothes

We didn't want to take care of the chickens during the winter. One day we decided to get rid of the chickens. In other words, we were going to execute 21 innocent chickens. Jerry fixed a box with a hole in the end for the chickens head to stick out of, took an axe and chopped their heads off and the chicken would flop around in the box for while and finally lay lifeless. My job was sticking them into boiling water and pulling all the feathers off of them. One of the chickens got out of the box after Jerry had cut his head off and was running around the yard with no head. Our youngest son thought it was the funniest thing in the world. 

And they were skinny chickens with not much meat. But we froze them and had 21 chickens in our freezer which every time we had one for dinner, I couldn't eat it. I lost a lot of weight that year.

The duck and chicken eggs and goat milk did make the most delicious homemade ice cream.

Neal

Well spring finally came and our lease was up on the farm. The man we rented it from wanted us to buy it and he was going to  give us a good deal on it with no down payment. He kept telling us how great it would be to raise our four boys on a farm in the country.

We couldn't get off that farm quick enough.

After a year of eating eggs that cost over $3.00 a dozen by the time you bought feed, boys who threatened to leave home and go live with grandparents if we didn't move, I ended up in the hospital for a week from complete exhaustion, we said good-bye to farm life. We decided we were going back to civilization where I could go to Kroger and find everything I wanted and needed.

I had a new admiration for my grandmothers and great grandmothers who had been hard working farmer wives while raising large families. It was an experience that our family would never forget.

And by the way, if anyone is ever in need of a goat milking lesson, I'm that person.