Personal blog, Stardate 98745.41. I intend to share my story with those interested. Computer, record the following rant…
I’m a nerd and my story begins a while ago in “God’s Country” aka the middle of nowhere.
Believe it or not, I was a cute little towhead, and the youngest of three. I had two older sisters that I would grow to love and respect more than most. This is not to say that we didn’t have our screaming matches and long periods of time where we didn’t speak, but luckily we grew up liking each other in the end. I have two wonderful parents and grew up on a farm that was large to us and most people I’ve met. It was a kind of compound where some of my extended family lived as well.
Farm Life
Well, my mom used to say we were “rich in love” and she was right. My sisters and I were well cared for and had so much fun with my cousins growing up. Once we were old enough to ride our bicycles, we were hell on wheels and racing every chance we got. There was no TV to watch that interested us because we only had one and a half channels on the antenna anyways, but we would all look forward to Saturday morning cartoons.
My daughter and nephews don’t know what it’s like to not be able to be entertained 24/7 by some piece of technology. I’m not saying one way or another, and I don’t want to be the old guy, but we did have a special time figuring out how to make our own fun.
We had a creek to play in (where we learned how to swim) and trees to make witch’s forts and cast spells on each other. It was a great time in the summer to race around the house on our bikes while my grandmother kept score. We would cross the cows (literally) from one pasture to another at night and enjoy the stars. In the brutal winters, we would dress up and play outside until we were frozen solid. Classic country lifestyle. We were blessed.
My dad doesn’t seem to think we worked on the farm and compared to his childhood, we didn’t. It was harder back then and they all had to chip in from early morning to late at night with school in-between. They had to do a lot by hand back then. Milking cows by hand and collecting the milk in pales. Jeesh. We did have it easier.
This isn’t to say that we didn’t work hard, though. We all had chores taking care of the calves and cleaning the barn. You’re probably not surprised by the fact that cows are very messy. You have to clean after them constantly! It’s pretty gross stuff, too, if you didn’t grow up with it. You have to take out the manure, make sure you clean the bedding, the drinking cups, the mangers, the milkhouse, the bulk tank, and on and on. Plus, you have to have a lot of skills outside of just the regular maintenance and feeding. You have to be a mechanic to fix the equipment when it breaks, and it always breaks. Better know how to weld! Veterinarian skills also come into play. From providing medicine, fixing wounds, to delivering newborns, you would make or break yourself if you didn’t keep the herd healthy.
All in all, we learned a lot. And by the end of summer, we were always in great shape. Compared to major farms that are out there, we were tiny. Let me tell you, though, unloading and stacking 30,000 hay bales to the ceiling of a barn is no joke. It gets well over a hundred degrees Farenheit at the top and it is miserable. You also have the fun side effect of scratches and being itchy all over. You ever get something stabbed under your fingernail? It hurts. And it happens, often, when dealing with haybales. It can also be dangerous (like everything else on the farm, isn’t?) because you can fall out of the wagon, the hay mow, get caught in the chain/gears of the elevator and more.
We did make it as fun as possible though by doing gymnastics and bowling in-between wagons when we could but after a long day nothing beat jumping in the water!
I did hate living on the farm as I got into high school and had a bug for city life, but as I matured a little I learned you can’t always control the environment you are in, but you will learn something from it. You might not see it at the moment, or even soon after, but you have learned something.
I know we grew up with privilege. I wasn’t poor or in a war zone. I had a very close and loving family that took care of us, were their own bosses, and instilled upon us the importance of honesty, integrity, and hard work. This has helped me my entire life and being in a leadership position requires these qualities. I’m doing my best to pass these qualities on to my family, now, and I sure hope I do as well as our parents did.
Catch me next time as I start to bring in my experiences working in technology and more fun stories about farm life!
About David “Nick” Pazzaglia
