Tag: farm

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Chatting With Lexi: On the Farm

thI try my hardest not to think about my time working on a farm. You can understand how me, a city boy, blanches every time a farm animal is mentioned, right? But my children are different, and I think they get it from their mother (who is a bona fide country girl through and through). They walk around here barefoot, they like Travis Tritt, and they like all things farm-related. Of course sometimes they might like things they don’t really know too much about.

Hmmmm. As always, Lexi and I have a lot of our most compelling conversations when it’s my bath night, and tonight was no exception.

Me: What did you do today?

Lexi: I had fun with the animals.

Me: What animals?

Lexi: Um, there were goats, and a llama. And my cow.

Me: You have a cow?

Lexi: Yeah, I have a cow. He puts out the fertilizer.

Me: Your cow is a boy?

Lexi: No, silly. He’s a girl.

Me: Uh, okay. How does she put out the fertilizer?

Lexi: You know.

Me: I do, but I’m not sure you do.

Lexi: Of course I do. It comes from his milk.

Me: His milk?

Lexi: Yeah, but first you have to get the milk out of him. Continue reading “Chatting With Lexi: On the Farm”

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I Did What?: My Sordid Job History, Volume 7

The cattle were lowing, and making more manure.

It was only my first day of high school and I was sticky with sweat, my brand new sneakers were ruined, and I smelled like manure. Not to mention that I had cried my eyes out no less than two times, my parents had left me to fend for myself, and my prospect of getting friends was dim, considering I smelled like manure. Home seemed too far away to dream about, and my sister was pretending not to know me. Yes, my high school career started off with a bit of a bang, you know, like most people’s. And I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was 23 years ago.

See, I went to a boarding school in mid-western Pennsylvania where they practiced what they preached. It was all about helping god help you, or something like that. Which meant that even thought the tuition to attend the school was larger than a golden goose egg, the school made sure all of its students worked to help lower that tuition. They were called on-campus and off-campus jobs, and they were not all created equal. Needless to say I got the worst possible job, in my opinion, working on the campus farm.

When we arrived at school on the Sunday before the first day of school, my parents had no idea what job I was going to picked to do, but I had high hopes. I wanted to work in the administration building, maybe answering phones or cleaning floors or something. I thought that job would be possibly even fun, but when we got up to the work assignment table in the gym I was hit with the truth. In the state of Pennsylvania, as a 13-year old there was only one on- or off-campus job that I could legally perform. You guessed it: the farm. As soon as they told us, I was so shell-shocked that I just stared down at my brand new white sneakers purchased specifically for a new school and a new attitude for me. I knew they were toast. Continue reading “I Did What?: My Sordid Job History, Volume 7”