Summer memories

Being farmers and ranchers and especially in my earliest years when we had a dairy vacations were to Grandma Annie's and Pope Jess's which was in Oolagah, Oklahoma.  Basically farming and ranching was seven days a week with small breaks for church and VBS (Vacation Bible School) and we would squeeze in an occasional trip to Shidler to the swimming pool or to summer baseball at the the Phillips Ball Park.  It was a lot of work and we were always busy during the summer getting ready for the winter but most of all it was a great life.  I always told my folks I would never come back when I left unless they got blacktop on those gravel roads.  TALK IS CHEAP!  I learned to love the farm and ranch as well as the satisfaction of hard work.  But today I want to share some fond memories and life lessons of the summer.

Before I was old enough (actually I am not sure there was an age limit) to go work for Don Kelsey hauling hay I fell in love with working with my dad.  Today is Father's Day and it seems appropriate to remember some of those times.  Most folks work 8 to 5 with an hour off for lunch and benefits but at our house it started by daylight and ended after dark unless there was a ballgame or church event.  The other thing unusual is working with Dad started somewhere around 10:45 A.M. as Dad had gone to work around 7 to carry the mail after he completed chores (he did not read the paper or watch TV, he planned his day).  So what happened in those first few hours each day, plenty.  We cut hay, built fence, plowed the fields or chiseled or drilled or harvested/combined (all farm words for preparing the fields for planting or harvesting) but most of all during the summer when I was small it was working in the garden growing food for the winter, gathering eggs and anything Mom could think of to do until Dad got home.  The only break to that came when Dad had left a list of things to do.  City folks always say there is nothing to do in the country but I would tell you that is why kids move to the city, to get away from the long list of never ending chores.  The other thing you know if you are a farm boy and that is YOU NEVER WANT TO STAY IN THE City.  So if it is all work why would a person prefer farm life over city life?

Well, it depends on how old you are but:

• At 8 years old you know how to drive a tractor and a pickup
• You have responsibility for helping the family prepare food for winter
• Not only have you prepared fields for planting all the way to harvesting but you have prepared and planted a garden and harvested the rewards of your hard work
• Family is known to be more important than your self interest
• Hard work is a badge of honor not something to hide from or get out of
• Walking in the footsteps of your father is your passion
• During drought and hard times you don't give up but you depend on God.  An old farmer once said, "Work like everything depends on you and pray like everything depends on God"
• Love for this world and what God has provided 
• Not only do you know your neighbors but they are your friends and you help them in small things and big things
• The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence meaning you are not always wishing for what someone else has but you take care of what you got (have is a better word but it just seems appropriate to say, "what you got")
• People live and understand what preserving the environment means more than those who have never lived on the land.  I will write a blog about this one.
• People with common values
• You own your own gun and you know how to use it
• You carry a knife and you know how to use it 
• Common sense is common
• Everyone is made equal but everyone is responsible for their own decisions and its consequences

Like a lot of my stories they start out one place and end up at another.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• It is not your circumstances that guide you but your decisions and your actions 
• It does not matter how many times you get knocked down but it does matter how many times you get up
• don't blame others for your failures, you can do anything you set your mind to do

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com