Family Farm Friday #34: They Don't Understand

“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” ~ Oscar Wilde

I've sort of been on a roll writing about ag kids (here is one or two in case you missed them.)


Now that I'm living in the city instead of on the farm, I've been around a lot of people who are not ag kids. Not only are they not ag kids, a lot of them have never even set foot on a farm or a ranch before. And the question that I get more often than any other is "why?" Why would anyone want to live in the middle of nowhere? Why would I want to spend my money on buying cattle or sheep of my own? Why would I want to get up in the cold or be outside in the dirt all the time?

People don't understand the connection that ag kids have with our families' farms. They don't understand because they have not experienced it. They don't know what it is like to live on your own land---land that your grandparents or great-grandparents bought decades ago. They don't know what it is like to get up at 6:00 in the morning in a foot of snow to go check on new baby lambs at the barn. They don't know how it feels to jump in wool sacks or play in a grain truck full of maize. The don't know.....but we do. We love our way of life in a way that they will never understand, because they have never lived it.
Anyway, here is a great article and even better slide show of a teenage boy, a third generation farmer, who dreams of taking over his family dairy farm in Michigan. I think that this article does a great job of explaining how farm kids feel. I'm sure glad I grew up on family farm....and that I understand.