Life on the farm......

While my parents were away...far far away.....in Malaysia serving a mission for this AWESOME CHURCH, my mom put together a document that she sent us kids called, "Life on the Farm". It was all about the things she'd learned raising us on the farm. My father grew up in SanDiego, CA and my mom grew up all over. Her father was in the military so they moved a lot. Both she and my dad we would call.....city slickers.......don' know nuthin' bout cuntree livin'.

She and dad moved from Plainfield NJ when I was one and moved all seven of us children to MT. A new way of life. They wanted to raise their children in a way that would build character. They gave up a lot. I'm sure I'll never know just how much they gave up to start a new life all over again. But, I can tell you this.......they gained a lot more from moving because they told me so. :o)

So, mom wrote this document about the things she learned on the farm and my baby sis, and my big sis right above me read her document and then busted up laughing cuz we had a document of our own that we wanted to add to mom's.......how we as the kids felt about the things we'd learned "on the farm".

Indulge me, over the next few days I'll be posting the things we learned because they really are priceless.

Part one of "Life on the Farm"


If you let the rototiller bounce off of the fence, it is much easier to turn around.

Mowing the lawn or gardening was a great way to work on the tan.

Mowing the lawn with the riding lawn mower was a great time to read a book and resulted in artistic mowing patterns.

Somehow Mom could never be convinced that all the “new” growth at the end of the row in the garden was supposed to be there because the row didn’t go to the fence that far.

Even if you puttered around in your row of the garden all day, you still had to finish it before you could play.

Things really do grow better over the septic tank.

Cars do not make good target practice from the top of the apple trees.

Even if you hide in said apple trees, occupants of car still know where the apples came from.

Mom said we had to pick every apple on the tree. She never said we how we had to do it. Only that we had to gather all those good apples from the tree and off the ground. If you shook the tree hard enough and then stomped on the apples, throwing the evidence over the fence to the horse, you were guaranteed only a small basket of good apples.

No matter how much you try and convince your dad that the bend in the pipe came from the cow, he doesn’t buy it.

Trying to change pipe by hooking it on to the back of the lawn mower only results in bending the pipe more.

If you yank hard enough on the pipes, the fence post still will not budge and the pipe will bend.

If you get really ticked off at the pipe and slam it down on the fence and jump on it, it makes a really cool bouncy toy.

Even if weather is warm enough to wear shorts in the afternoon, changing pipe barefoot before the bus comes in ice is never a good thing.

No matter how soft you try to slip one end of the pipe into another, it will always undo another link somewhere further up the line.

Swearing like a sailor in the field and then speaking like a cultured lady in the presence of parents was a fine art.

You really can carry all the pipes from one field to the other in one load, especially when Mom and Dad aren’t home.

Trying to get rid of mice by plugging up the ends of the pipe only results in plugging up the heads of the sprinklers.

Stay tuned for part Two, "Life on the Farm"