Growing up on a Farm

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Weedygarden

Weedygarden

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I didn't live my whole childhood on a farm, but parts and pieces of it. There are always fun and dangerous things happening on farms with animals.

How many of you grew up or lived on a farm and have crazy stories of what happened?

I saw this story in a group " South Dakota History of Cities, Towns, places and people who made it great! "
The man who wrote this was from my home county and I went to church and to school with him and his sisters. He periodically shares great stories about his family. Both of the parents are deceased now. His sister, my classmate, has had her own land and raised her own flocks of sheep.
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I ran across this pic of my mom and her prize Buck sheep, circa 1959. One day dad decided we were going to have a rodeo out in the corrals ( you can see our corrals were a little sketchy). He first put my sister on him and turned him loose and he ran along the fence and scraped all the skin off her leg, so obviously, that wasn’t enough entertainment for him, so he threw me on the old sheeps back, and turned me out on my first Mutton Busting ride. (Obviously my Dad had just invented Mutton Busting)
🤠

So through the tears and screams and cries for help, I think and feel I was making a pretty good ride, and then the old Buck Sheep ran underneath the belly of the old milk cow and shucked me off like you had hit me in the head with a post, so since he then had one kid crying, bleeding on the ground, and another one lying on the ground crying with a concussion, and the other sister hiding in the barn.....the rodeo was over.
Ultimately, the old Buck sheep
🐑
got mean and started attacking us and chasing us, so one day, Dad went after him and chased him across the road and the old Buck while he trying to get away, tried to swim across Lesley’s Dam, and when he was about half way across, his wool soaked up so much water he just sunk and drowned. I know my dad felt vindicated, my mom was angry and never forgive him for losing her prize Buck Sheep. Still Years later, He love to tell that story..... whenever mom wasn’t in the room
🤠

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I grew up on a horse farm. We boarded horses and had rodeo livestock. The couple that owned the place had two daughters about my age, we had tons of fun!! We also had workhorses! My dad would hook them up to a big flatbed trailer and feed the livestock, he did use a tractor too, but he liked using the horses! Us kids were never without horses to ride or animals to play with!! It was a lot of work too, I was glad get my good work ethic from my upbringing on the farm!!
 
Bacpacker said:
We raised cattle. Dont recall many funny stories, other than a cousin peeing on the electric fence.
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I know I posted this a while back in another thread, but, my hubby did that too when he was a kid!! His brother makes sure to bring that up from time to time!! Now he just had a problem accidently touching the hot fence, got his elbow the other day!😁
 
I didn't grow up on a farm but spent a lot of time at one ( like summers and a half a year once when my mother was pregnant with my brother and not doing well) . My godparents owned it ( my mother's aunt and uncle) and my great grandmother lived there also . There were a few dairy cows, a few pigs , chickens, rabbits and a mean goose. The uncle had bees also. He died from cancer when I was about 10 and my godmother got rid of the larger animals then but we had lots of relatives in the village with larger farms I spent a lot of time at. No funny stories, sorry
I liked being there more than at home and dreaded when school started up and I had to go live with my parents in town
 
My Grandparents had small farms. I spent as much time as possible there.
Almost every boy that was on a farm peed on an electric fence or talked a friend or brother into doing it.
I saw a stallion that was straddling an electric fence that was about a foot tall and was there to keep piglets in.
When he let down he didn't pee on the fence he actually touched the fence. He ran through 3 barbed wire fences before he stopped. He was fence shy from that day on.
The best 30 seconds of my young life happened in a hay loft. :p
 
I've never really lived on a farm, but visited others who atleast had a few acres and different types of livestock.

My youngest memories are of my Aunts ex inlaws, who I called grandma & grandpa. They never had 220amp for heating or cooking, I don't remember what they did have for heating probably oil or propane, but grandma cooked on a huge wood cookstove. It's all she ever knew. And grandpa did his own butchering. They had a few cows, horses and chickens.

One story that involved me that I remember, was chasing the chickens. I was about 2 or 3. While chasing them, the rooster stopped all of a sudden and so did I and he came up and pecked me in the kneecap and drew blood. I never chased chickens again after that...........well, except my own now as an adult, but they don't came after me anymore either.
'
Another story,, I used to tap the electric fence with a stick on purpose cause I was curious about that weird jolt. That is until one day it about knocked me for a loop.......I'm still not sure what was different, if I was standing in a puddle, may have used a piece of metal or grandpa turned up the voltage......but boy howdie, I never did that again

Also around the age of 2, at another family members house, who had a horse. It may have been a recent addition, I'm not sure of the circumstances, but they were very experienced horse people. This horse was mean and dangerous. Nobody could get around it or ride it for fear of being bucked, kicked, bit, etc Of course being 2yo I didn't know any better and I went out there and was swinging by it's tail between it's legs. My mother and all the other adults were frantic but couldn't do anything except call me to come back away from the horse. I'm sure my safety was because the horse knew I was just a kid and meant no harm.

Then at someone else's home, they were raising a couple of calves, but didn't have bottles to feed them with. So I learned how to feed by them sucking on my fingers with their heads in the buckets of milk (probably calf replacer)


These ^^^ are my fondest memories of farm life........or maybe I should say best lessons learned
 
I grew up on a cattle ranch - as far as funny stories, I'll have to think about it. I'm sure there were, it's just the remembering part.
I do remember having some huge chickens. They were meat birds Mom had raised. Nobody could catch them so Dad shot their heads off. My brother and I thought that was the funniest thing. Without heads, they were running into fence posts. Kinda morbid sounding now, but we were nutty kids.
 
Bacpacker said:
We raised cattle. Dont recall many funny stories, other than a cousin peeing on the electric fence.
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I had a number of cousins (10 or so) who'd come down for the summers from Mich. They'd get passed around to all the kinfolk.

This one cousin seemed to get all the practical jokes (J). Once we were helping some of them ride a shetland pony (mean, nasty). Just walking him around the big lot, a corn crib in the middle. When J was on the opposite side of the crib from the main gate someone opened it. Knowing that horse would see it and take off for the bottoms. He lasted almost 100yds before he fell off. At least he quit screaming! 😁

Then there was the time someone told J his grandmother loved these pretty white flowers we found in the pasture. He picked them... 🤣Someone got a whipping over that one.


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(cnidoscolus stimulosus)
 
Always been around Agriculture, except for a couple of years in a hamlet when my former wife and I were first married. lots of adventures, tons of fun, more than a few wrecks, but wounds heal, mostly, and chicks dig scars
 
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Really, when I look back those years they were just normal. What would be interesting or shocking to people today was just life. We raised beef, hogs n chickens, slaughtered them. We grew cotton, corn, big gardens… Kids worked right along side adults, as soon as you were big enough to help. This was normal, we saw it all. Folks would think of exposing kids to this today as shocking.

I remember killin’ chickens one summer...grandma would wring their necks and toss it on the pile. Us kids had to pluck them then pass them to adults who were dressing them.

Anyway, a chicken got it’s neck wrung, got plucked, then woke up. It wasn’t dead. It jumped off the cutting boards and ran. I remember laughing as we chased this naked chicken around and around the barnyard. Everyone was laughing, it looked so funny! 🤣
 
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Not from growing up on a farm, but what happened in my yard...................first time I raised a couple of turkeys. The neighbors were entertaining some friends and when they'd laugh, my turkeys gobbled in return. They'd laugh, turkeys gobbled......they talked or were silent, so were the turkeys,...they laughed, turkeys gobbled. I decided right then & there it was time for the freezer.

So the next day as I'm preparing to do the deed, my #2 son volunteered to do the kill, with his compound bow.. He was about 15 and had always been impressive with his aim & perfect shots with bow or gun. It was like he was born for it. So I agreed, thinking it would be a quick job done.........but NOOOOO, Oh he hit the turkey alright, with about 7 arrows but it didn't die, even with an arrow sticking thru it's head. The poor bird looked like a pin cushion with arrows sticking out everywhere. It did finally give it up and I got it plucked & cleaned, but he's not allowed to help anymore and he'll never live that one down cause we give him a hard time every Thanksgiving.
 
I don't know how I lived through my growing up years!! Animals know when you like them!! I remember going out in the bucking horse pasture and climbing on them, brushing them, hugging them!! Not the bulls, well, maybe a couple!! All animals got brushed and hugged if I dared!! I truly had THE BEST childhood!!
 
I have lots of crazy animal stories. Somehow, our animals knew they were at the funny farm and acted accordingly.

4H was brought into the community one year. It was not the 4H that I read about in the rest of the world. My brother wanted to join, but beef and sheep were the only categories offered.

All the beef in the area were free range and uncatchable. No one had any sheep. Our grandpa and grandma chose that year to come up to Canada for their first visit. They bought a lamb and hauled it in the back seat all the way from Montana.

Well in typical bush fashion that lamb was turned loose and it hung with the dogs for companionship. The dogs spent most of their time chasing dad's car down the driveway a mile or so. The lamb learned to chase cars with them.

At the fall fair the 4H ers were expected to sell their livestock for charity. A towny bought the lamb as a pet for his kids. A few weeks later it was returned to my brother because it kept chasing cars in town.
 
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I remembered this last night, ingenuity on the farm... My uncle’s farm was next door to ours and I worked with him often. He came and got me one day, needed help with something. We’re driving and he says… You know that big boar hog I have over at the John farm? We’re going to castrate him, I’m gonna fatten him a little then take him to the processors.

I thought my uncle was insane. This boar was huge, 600lbs, old, mean, tusks were 8inches. Normally I wouldn’t even get in the pasture with him. I’d been around livestock all of my 14 years. This hog was different, I was afraid of this beast! He could easily kill.

And the 2 of us are going to capture, hold, then castrate him? Yep, my uncle had lost his mind! I was sure of it.

Neatest trick I’ve ever seen… Uncle went in the pasture, tipped over a 55gal water barrel by the pig house. Then he laid the barrel on it’s side. He put it about 4ft from a big roof support pole, open end facing out in the pasture at a big tree. This big boar was watching the whole time…

Uncle threw some shelled corn up in the barrel, a little in front, then we went in the pig house. The boar came up and started eating. Then the two of us moved quietly around the building, out into the pasture and stood behind that big tree. (The hogs butt was pointed at us).

Finally the boar began to wedge his head and shoulders into the barrel, still eating. We ran up behind him, each grabbed a rear leg and lifted. We stood the hog on his head in a barrel! Uncle had a rope he tossed around the hog and the pole so he couldn’t tip over.

It was over before that hog knew what was happening. He was not a happy camper when he got out of that barrel though, went on a rampage. It was a couple days before he calmed and uncle could in the pasture again.
 
Peanut said:
Really, when I look back those years they were just normal. What would be interesting or shocking to people today was just life.
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For those of us who have experienced farm life, if there is a big change in life we now know, I think we will be able to adapt a little easier. I do like my creature comforts, but I have also done a lot of farm work to know that is how life is. I've cleaned chickens from start to finish. I've known people who are grossed out by cutting up a dressed chicken, let alone gutting one. The smell of manure is something that many people get all upset about. It is a part of life on the farm! I've done many more things relative to butchering, field work, and other aspects of farm life. There is something rewarding and interesting about it.
 
I guess what I was trying to say earlier, I've dozens of stories non-farm folk might find interesting. But in my mind the memories don't stand out because they were just normal life.

I got yelled at by a teacher once, gave me an F on a paper as it wasn't "appropriate". We were supposed to write a short story about an event that happened in our life. I wrote about pulling a calf, had just happened. Sometimes a cow will have a difficult birth and we literally pulled the calf by his front legs, assisted in the birth. I was 9, how did I know this was "inappropriate" in a classroom? Guess this means my life is inappropriate also. Of course the social pecking order at school had the farm kids on the lowest level with the other undesirables.

I found a pic of pigs in a barrel in case folks couldn't visualize my poor descriptors above. Imagine a 600lb hog with his head and shoulders wedged into the open end of a 55g steel drum. Stand it up and the hog is on his head.

barrel pig.jpg
 
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I grew up and lived over half my life in the huge megapolis that is Palm Beach County, Florida.
My wife grew up an Air Force Brat but still managed to ride horses.

Her dream was to be a farmer who also had horses.
The company I worked for, Georgia Pacific, was closing down the West Palm Beach branch, and offered me a promotion and paid relocation. Wife and I had been praying hard for years to get out of Jupiter, Fl, and took the chance.

Since 1995 she has been living her dream, and I’m happy being the “hired hand”.
Dogs, horses, chickens, plants in the ground, all on a dead end dirt road six miles outside a one stop light town of 2,000.

Am I a farmer? Nope, just an ex-city boy who has found peace and serenity.
 
I've got a bunch. When I was small one of the sows got loose and dad couldn't get her out of the cornfield. He doesn't have much of a temper, but he chased her around for so long that he snapped. He went and got the tractor, an old Oliver 880, and a log chain. Then he chased her around the field with it until she dropped from exhaustion. He got off the tractor and wrapped that chain around her back legs and started dragging her back to the hoghouse. My older brothers got scared and said, You're going to kill her! Dad said, If she dies, she dies, and we won't have to chase her again. If she lives, she lives, a d she'll remember this, and we won't have to chase her again. She lived, and we didn't have to chase her any more...

When I was in high school the cattle got out in the spring. Dad and I rounded them up, except for one ornery old Angus cross. She was bad news but she raised nice calves. We had a Black Lab that thought everything was a game, and he was having a great time running up behind these cows and nipping at them. Then he nipped at this mean old cow. She took it the first time. The second time she wheeled around and went after him. The dog ran to my dad for protection and the cow didn't care that dad wasn't the one nipping at her. She caught Pops in the ribs and tossed him. I can still hear the sound he made when her head hit him and see him spread eagle in the air, four feet off the ground. That dog was real lucky Pops didn't have a gun on him that day...
 
Peanut said:
Of course the social pecking order at school had the farm kids on the lowest level with the other undesirables.
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Oh, yes. Farm kids were often called dumb farmers. I don't see farmers as dumb. There is much to know and to be aware of on a farm. It may not be as glamorous as wearing a business suit, working in some classy office and living in a clean house with a manicured yard, but it has its own desirability. I remember hearing stories about my grandfather's cousin from Chicago going to the ranch in South Dakota. They remember how much he liked the farm fresh eggs, the fresh air, and being able to see the constellations in the sky at night.
 
Our neighbors decided to put in indoor plumbing. This meant digging a trench from the house out to a dug lagoon. The trench was slanted from cabin level and down to the lagoon at the base of a hill.

They got the trench and lagoon dug and the pipe laid. A few days later they started filling the trench from the house end towards the lagoon. When they got to the lagoon, they looked in and discovered my herd of ponies in it. All 23 of them had to be hoisted out with the tractor.

I got a whoopin because no one knew I had 23 ponies. (Opsec )
 
By the way, my avatar is my wife's mare, taken at dusk with my game cam.
Behind her butt is the chicken area, she is facing the tree line wherein live red fox.
I set the cam to see if any foxes were nosing around after dark.

The biggest chicken killers we have had were a raccoon who climbed over the 6' chainlink fence around the chicken area, and at least three possums who dug under at one corner,
The raccoon was live trapped and shot, the three possums were relocated about two miles down the road.
 
the hog stories remind me of our huge male saint bernard, somehow he figured out how to herd hogs, it was hilarious to watch, he often sorted cattle by markings, but herding the hogs was interesting, they were never let to get really big. maybe 300 pounds max, and I don't recall if there was a Boar at the time, but when they escaped he would bring them back to their shed.
 
My parents were not from Mayberry. You really don't want to know about them if you need to keep your BP down and sleep at night.

How I got my ponies. When I was six I had surgery for a hernia. I shared a room with an old Indian lady: best thing that ever happened to me. She let me know what kindness was. I spent a week doing liquid embroidery with her. Pretty much lived on her bed.

I went home. She did not. A few months later, some Indians from the reserve dropped off two pony mares. Mary had left them to me.

Sometime in the future, my mother was drunk in town and somehow ended up with a registered pony stallion which she promptly forgot about. Over the years the herd built up.

Everything was free range so no one really saw anything and I was the one who took care of all things animal. Ponies are particularly adept at foraging and did very well on the natural meadows and sloughs even during winter so they didn't really add to the hay consumption.

I spent very little time at home. It wasn't safe. I lived my childhood roaming the bush for weeks on end. The ponies let me travel further and escape faster. No, there were no search parties and I evaded people like my life depended on it.
 
That's a crazy way to grow up, Clem. I was talking to my half sis when she was here visiting in March. Mom sent her off when she was 10 to live with her dad in Wisconsin, and he was no good. Their trailer burnt down so she lived in a tent for two years by herself, even through Wisconsin winters. Had a raccoon for a pet. Scrounged for food, still went to school, but always dirty. She had some stories going it alone at that age, I'm sure you do, too.
 
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