My Start in Agriculture

Here I am back at my blog after a little more than three years. I will attempt to post on a weekly basis in an effort to tell my agriculture story.

I am a fifth generation native to the State of Nevada which is as much a part of me as any other formative influence. It is an environment that is unforgiving and beautiful all at the same time.                                            

My parents owned a small dairy that marketed cream that was separated from the whole milk. It was put into five and ten gallon milk cans to be picked up and delivered to the Minden Butter Company in Minden, Nevada. The skim milk was mixed with ground grains and alfalfa that was fed to pigs. Dad and Mom raised a few beef cattle on irrigated pasture and were partners in a whiteface range sheep company that my Dad's family owned. Mom and Dad also worked at the Plymouth Ranch which was owned and operated by my mothers side of the family. Dad farmed  80-100 acres of alfalfa hay and small grains and 200 acres of pasture-grass hay land.

We lived on this farm until I was five years old and I have only a few solid memories of these years. One of them is the smell that identified every area of the farm. The smell of clover blooming in the pastures is probably the most pleasant one along with the smell of fresh warm milk in the separator room at the barn. There are others such as the pig pens, rotting cow manure, and scalding chickens at slaughter that have a notably disgusting scent. Fields where Dad farmed had their own pleasant scents to share. Fresh mown hay and freshly plowed soil are what I remember most.

My love for tractors began sometime during these early years. Mom is sure that the first word that I spoke was tractor (pronounced "track tore". The Farmall M was the "big tractor" that was used for grinding hay and grain for the milk cows, pigs, and chickens. It was hooked to a John Deere hammer mill with a long flat fiber belt attached to the pulley on the right side of it, just in front of the operator deck. It fascinated me. The highlight of this tractor fascination was the day that Mr Springmeyer delivered the new 8N Ford. The minute I saw it I thought to myself, that is just my size. I felt so big and important sitting in Dad's lap with my hands on the steering wheel. This shiny grey and red machine with fenders and a throttle handle just under the steering wheel was awesome!

I learned a hard lesson by not doing what Mom and Dad tell you at the woodpile one winter day. I went out to split wood, oh yes with a very sharp ax. I had just gotten a new pair of cowboy boots for my birthday and was feeling all important and a big boy. I am helping Dad out so he doesn't have to chop wood tonight I thought. What happened was I lifted the ax to chop, bounced off log, hit my new boot right at my little toe. I started to cry because I ruined my new boots and then the blood started coming through the cut in the boot and it hurt. Mom came out of the house when she heard me crying and was not happy to say the least, and especially not because it could have been much worse. A few stitches and tetanus shot by our wonderful local doctor, Dr Mary and I was fine. (As a side note: this was the first of many times this wonderful lady would be sewing me back together.)