Wolfie

My dog died today.  He was killed by coyotes.  His name was Wolfie.

I got Wolfie as a puppy in 2006.  He was my 4-H project and the first dog that was really my own.  We've had plenty of farm dogs, but Wolfie was mine.  He wasn't the best behaved dog and he liked to chase the cows when they didn't need to be chased.  Wolfie was scared of most things smaller than himself (I had to save him from an angry mouse this summer), but he would willingly take on any dog bigger than himself, so I had to watch him around other dogs.  

In spite of all of his faults, Wolfie could be pretty lovable.  He always came and sat in front of me when I called him and would sit with his head cocked to one side, giving me the cute puppy look until I petted him.  And he loved to play fetch.  Whether he was chasing a soccer ball or a tennis ball, he was always so enthusiastic about chasing whatever I threw for him.  Often times Wolfie would run so fast that he would be unable to stop at the ball and would skid on the grass or tumble head over heels before scrambling to his feet and going back to get the ball.

I lost Wolfie once.  We went away on vacation and left him at my uncle's farm.  The day we came home, he ran away, just hours before we went to pick him up.  I was crushed.  We drove all over the neighbourhood calling him and asking neighbours if they'd seen him.  When we finally got home, my uncle drove onto the yard with Wolfie in his truck.  He had wandered back to my uncle's farm after going who-knows-where on his adventure.  He never ran away again.

Wolfie, being a purebred blue heeler, was pretty small.  He didn't even come up to my knees.  Even so, my mom always said that if he wasn't our dog, she would be afraid to get out of the car when he was on the deck.  He was one powerful looking dog, but he always liked people.

This morning I went out to help my dad with chores.  When I got to the granary, my dad told me that Wolfie wasn't around.  Dad's dog, Bandit, was running around as always, but Wolfie wasn't around.  Since Wolfie was getting old, I figured he was sleeping in the doghouse or something.  But, when we fed the dogs later, he still didn't come.  When we headed out to feed hay, Bandit didn't want to come with us and he was acting skittish.  As we drove out to the pasture, we saw some magpies in the corral, pecking at something.  It was Wolfie.  The dogs have been chasing coyotes off the yard for the last several nights.  This night, the coyotes won.

There have been few times when I was mad enough to want to swear, but this was one of them.  I wanted to call those coyotes all manner of rude names, but I couldn't.  Coyotes have to eat, too, and they were just acting on instinct.  I can't really blame them for that.

One day I'll get a new dog, a puppy, when it's not winter out.  Then he can live outside and I'll train him as I did Wolfie.  For now, Bandit is on his own and will be getting plenty of attention.

Wolfie meeting Dad's new puppy, Bandit, this summer.

Decisions

I'm finally home for the Christmas break.  As usual, I've been helping my dad with chores, especially feeding the hay.  I do this every year.  I come home and spend the morning with my dad every few days as we feed enough hay to get the cows through in the cold.  As we drive out to the pasture in the tractor, we talk.  Usually Dad tells stories or drops bits of knowledge in my direction.  This year has been different, though.  This year we've been talking about the future of the farm.  My future.  My dad wants to know what I plan to do with the farm and how I want to proceed with actually buying the farm.  The decisions I need to make are starting to pile up and become overwhelming.

Some of the first decisions I need to make have to do with school.  I have three semesters left and I need to decide what classes to take in the last two.  Since I'm taking so many second-year courses this year, I will be able to take extra courses.  My friends who are in their second year of the program often talk about all of the interesting classes they've taken and I admit I want to take them all if I can.  I have so many options, though!  I could even take a second major.  Before I figure out which classes to take, though, I need to know what I want to do with the farm.  I could focus mainly on livestock.  After all, most of the land on the family farm is much better suited for livestock than for crops.  And I can't imagine getting rid of the cows completely.  Yet, neither can I imagine not having crops.  We do have good crop land in the area and I know that it's dangerous to rely only on cows or only on one crop for revenue.  I will likely do as my dad does, raising both crops and cows.  Unfortunately, that presents a bit of a problem for school.  You see, in the production major, second-years concentrate either on crops or livestock.  I'm a bit worried that I won't have the time to take all of the courses that I want to.  I suppose I'll see how it all works out in a few months when I sit down with my program advisor to figure out classes for next year.

The other major decisions piling up have to do with farm succession.  This is, I've heard, one of the most divisive events in farm families.  Essentially, the inheritance is being handed over while the parents are still alive.  The successor needs to have enough capital to survive as a farmer (that's a lot).  The parents need to be able to support themselves in retirement.  Other important people, like siblings who are leaving the farm, need to be considered to make sure everything is fair.  It's a delicate balancing act.  It's also really scaring me because all of sudden everything I've been working towards the last several years is starting to actually happen.  The part that's overwhelming (aside from realising that, hey, I'm a grown-up) is trying to sort through all of the different options:  Do I keep the south quarter?  Do I see if the neighbour will sell me his east quarter?  Do I build up my own herd or buy cows from Dad when he sells off his herd?  Do I buy the farm outright or work towards owning it?  Do I pay Dad directly or go through a bank?  How do I make sure my sister is treated fairly through all of this and that my parents don't just lose all they worked for?  It's a lot to think about.

I realise this is shorter than most of my other blogs, but I don't really have much more to say.  I have more questions than answers right now.  One day I'll look back and see how it all worked out, but for now, the future is a bit of a mystery.

What I Mean When I Say, "I Don't Need You"

I'm currently watching a movie, completely unhindered by thoughts of homework or studying.  Oh, it's glorious to be finished with my exams!  In the movie, two characters are arguing and the woman tells the man who was sent to protect her, "I don't need you."  I've seen this movie before.  She will be proven wrong rather soon.

I cannot begin to count the number of times I've said or thought those words, or words very similar to them.  And, like the woman in the movie, I am often proven wrong, whether the person I'm talking to is a man or not.  I'd like to talk about a few ways that I say, "I don't need you," and what I really mean when I say it.

1.  No Words
Often I'm afraid to ask to for help because I am either not comfortable with the people I'm around or I don't want to be that person that needs help all the time.  So, even though I don't really want to do whatever it is that needs doing, I just go ahead and do it myself.  With one of the volunteer activities that I do on a weekly basis, I usually need something from the top shelf of the church pantry.  I don't come close to reaching that shelf from the floor.  Even though there are generally at least one or two six-foot plus young men helping out, I almost always drag the rather rickety step stool over and get whatever I need myself.  The guys tell me they can do it for me, but by the time they realize what I'm up to it's usually too late.  I worry that sometimes I make them feel unneeded or unwanted.  That's not what I'm saying at all.
At the beginning of the semester my actions meant, "I don't know you well enough to ask for help."
Now my actions mean, "I don't want to take advantage of you."

2.  "No, no.  I've got it."
This is usually what I say when someone offers to help me do something completely normal, like my friends offering to help with the dishes when I have them over for supper.  This one's pretty simple.  I'm not so much saying that I don't need help as that I don't want help.  That sounds a bit rude, even to me, though, so I say, "No, no.  I've got it.  You just let me worry about that."
These words mean, "I've got a system and it's easier to do this without you."

3. "I can do it!"
This is usually said on a sob.  The best example I can give is when my dad asks me to close a gate or lift something or spread the harrows or back up to the trailer.  I get upset when I discover that I'm not tall or strong or skilled enough to complete the task.  When Dad comes to my rescue I get even more frustrated because I figure if Dad asked me to do it, I should be able to do it and he shouldn't have to do it for me.  In my frustration I choke back my tears of insecurity and take out my frustration on my dad (or whoever else is trying to help).  I shout, "I can do it!" and keep trying to complete the task until the rescuer either pries the thing out of my hands or orders me out of the truck or tractor.
When I yell, it means, "I'm embarrassed that I can't do this and I think I should be able to and I want to cry out of frustration, but that would be even more embarrassing and I don't know what to do about all this!"

4.  "I'm okay by myself"
I say this to my teachers a lot.  They see me working alone on a project or in a lab that's really best done in a group or with a partner and ask if I want them to find me someone to work with.  I'm 22 years old.  It gets a little embarrassing when the teacher feels the need to find me a group.  Because I take some first-year classes and some second-year classes, it has taken me longer than most of my classmates to get to know most of the people in my classes.  Being a rather shy individual, I generally don't ask anyone to work with me simply because I'm too chicken to ask.  So I work by myself and wish I had a group or partner because I really do like working with others.  It gets lonely at times.  This, I realize, is no one's fault but my own.
When I work by myself, it usually means, "I wouldn't mind having a partner, but I'm afraid of being turned down or becoming an annoyance, so it's easier to work on my own."

5. "I do NOT need a man!" 
I've said these words many, many times, but never in front of an actual man until earlier this year.  Usually I've said or thought it when someone tells me that I need a husband (because then he could do the farming and I could be the good wife that my neighbours tell me I could be).  Depending on how well I know and respect the person telling me this, I will either say or think, "I don't need a husband," very emphatically.  This fall I had a few friends over to my place for a meeting and I had just warned one of the guys to be careful of the chair he was sitting in because it was a bit tippy and I hadn't found the time to fix it yet.  The other girl in the room said something about me needing a man to do that for me and without thinking, I snapped, "I do NOT need a man!  I mean...no offense to you guys..."  They all looked a little surprised at my vehemence and I silently swore to myself that I would be guarding my tongue extra carefully in the future.  Now, I certainly wouldn't mind having a husband to do things like that for me, but the idea that I'm not capable of doing it myself rather irks me.  Catch me on a bad day, and I will snap at you.
When I say this, I mean, "I know it's easier for a man to do this and I would like very much to have a husband to do it for me, but I don't have a husband and I'm not about to throw myself on the mercy of some poor unsuspecting friend of mine who's just here for supper.  I'll do it myself because I'm pretty sure I can."

Now that I've explained some of my basic vocabulary to you, I'm hoping you won't be using it against me.  Most of the time I don't even know what I'm saying or meaning until later, when I've had time to think it over.

Examinations

I just finished final exams for the semester.  The last one, livestock, was this morning.  Yesterday I wrote an exam for a course called "Survey of Agribusiness."  That's one of those classes that we all have to take, but we have no idea what the point of it is.  There is no real connecting point for all the stuff we learn in the class.  It covers such a wide range of material that it's hard to know what to focus on, especially come exam time.  Yesterday, while writing my answer to the last of five brutally long "medium answer" questions on the exam, I think I sort of figured it out.

Exam, as most people should know, is the shortened version of examination, which is what people used to call exams back when life was slower and they had time for the extra syllables.  The last question on that exam forced me to examine everything I had learned and figure out if my perception of the term "agribusiness" had changed.  I won't bore you with the page-long answer I wrote as my hand threatened to never uncurl from around the pen again, but suffice it to say that I had a bit of a breakthrough.  I figured out that everything we had learned in that class was supposed to broaden our worldviews to keep us from becoming as close-minded as we like to think that certain city folk are.  

Let me explain that.  As students of agriculture, we learn a lot about how to educate non-farmers about what really goes on at the farm level.  That's not to say that all city folk are ignorant.  It's just that there are some pretty interesting ideas about farming floating around out there.  Anyway, I think that sometimes we forget that we don't always have to be the educators.  There are actually some people that we can learn things from.  And so, this "Survey of Agribusiness" class is meant to open our minds to possibilities.  That doesn't mean we have to blindly accept everything, but we can at least listen.  I'm not about to get into farming if it means becoming a robot overlord in the near future, but I suppose I could be open to using some new technology.  This class has forced me to examine what I know and think I know about farming.

You know, the funny  thing about thinking and examining is that it usually leads to more thinking and examining.  I've been examining the way I live my life lately.  This year, as I was studying in the library one day, one of my friends pulled me over to a table where one of the guys we know from Bible study was studying.  More of the guys were going to be coming and everyone was going to study together.  A few hours later, we had two tables pushed together with nine people crowded around, most of us studying economics and waiting for our pizza lunch to arrive.  That was the first time I had really experienced group studying.  It's a strange experience.  We all get distracted really easily and at least half of the time spent "studying" has nothing to do with actually learning or reviewing the material.  Yet somehow we learn the stuff better because we quiz each other and we're all trying to look like we know what we're talking about.  When I studied with the group, I actually seemed to retain what was going into my head.

As the semester continued on towards its inevitable end, I found myself studying with that group of friends a few more times.  Other times I studied alone.  I've always been okay with being alone for significant periods of time and I have always studied alone and done a lot of my school work alone.  Even some group projects I've opted to do alone - mainly because I'm too chicken to ask anyone to be my partner.  I suppose I told myself that I spend so much time alone because I need to get used to being alone on the farm.  One day I'll go home and take over the farm and I'll be alone.  There are, of course, times in every farmer's life when there is a lot of alone time.  Most of that alone time is on the tractor.  But, I guess I expect that I'll be alone all the time.  And I've been preparing myself for that.  It was going well, too, until my friend pulled over to that table to study.  Now I'm beginning to realize that I'm not really okay with being alone all the time.  It seems my friends at school have rather ruined my happy lonely existence.

Now, I'm not about to become a social butterfly or anything, but I think I need to start re-examining how I’ve been living my life.  Maybe instead of preparing to be alone I should be working to make sure that I’m not alone.  Maybe it’s my responsibility to get out of my lonely little comfort zone and take a risk and make friends wherever I am.  I won’t always have time to be sociable, but that’s farm life and I’ve always known that.  Some seasons will be busier than others.  But that doesn’t mean I can just shut myself away from the world and blame on the lifestyle I've chosen.

I Had No Idea

There are things that farm kids don't really realize until they leave home and move to the city.  I know I have definitely learned a lot from living in the city and then in town for the past few years while I go to school.  I've also talked to some of my friends who have had similar revelations.  I'd like to share some words of wisdom for those farm kids who will soon be graduating from high school and moving to the city.  These insights come from my personal experiences and some are corroborated by various friends.


1. Winter is hard.
I can hear every reader saying, "Well, duh," to the screen right now, but hear me out.  On the farm we tramp through snow to do chores, shoveling out the troughs before we feed grain.  We have to go out in the cold to check the calves to make sure they don't freeze at night.  When we go sledding in the pasture, we have to be careful not to hit a frozen patty.  Worst of all, we have to plow our ridiculously long driveways every time it snows lest we be blocked into our own homes.  Yes, winter is hard.  But on the farm, that's all just part of life.  When you get to the city, it really gets bad.  Let me give a few examples.  In the city:

• there are no tractors; you have to shovel everything by hand or face a fine from the city.  (Hint: Never live on a corner lot; it'll double the amount of shoveling you have to do.)
• if the ice builds up on your sidewalk, you have to remove it or face a fine.  That's a lot harder than it sounds.  Also, ice builds up a lot faster than you might expect.  I mean, you step on a patch of snow, come back an hour later, and it's ice.  
• residential areas get plowed last (okay, so do country roads), and none of the neighbours have tractors to do it themselves.
• the snow doesn't stay white.  It gets all brown and nasty (sounds like the corrals, but it's not like that at all) and slushy, so instead of a winter wonderland, you end up with a winter yuckyland.
• some houses don't have a garage, so you have to park outside on the street.  Then, if you want to go anywhere, you have to brush the snow off your car and scrape off the frost, too.  Every time.

2. You don't need a vehicle.

Let that blow your mind for a moment.  We farm kids have all grown up driving, operating equipment from the time we can reach the pedals, and "helping" our dads steer before that.  But in the city or town, most things you need are in walking distance.  If they aren't, you can take public transit or a taxi.  Seriously, there are city people who never learn to drive.  Is your mind blown yet? 

3. Everything is concrete.

I mean everything.  It's ridiculous.  Even when there are patches of grass, you often aren't allowed to walk on them.  It's awful.  I don't understand how city people don't all have serious problems with their backs and knees from walking on the stuff all the time.

4. You actually have to exercise.

This more applies to students.  There are no cows to chase after or feed in the city.  There are no crops to go check.  There are no machines or grain bins to climb onto.  You just sit and walk between classes all day.  They have these things called gyms here, with all this fancy equipment.  There are weights to lift and bars to pull yourself up on and treadmills so you can run in place.  If you want to stay reasonably fit, you have to go to the gym and use the equipment.  Or shovel snow for all the neighbours.  It's weird.

5. Stars don't show up real well.

They call it light pollution.  You know how you can see where your neighbour's yard is at night, even if it's behind the trees, just because you can see the glow of the yard light several meters into the night sky?  Imagine thousands of yard lights all doing that at once all in a concentrated area.  The light blocks the light of stars, just like the sun does during the day.  Oh, you can usually see a couple of particularly bright stars on a clear night, but it's just not the same.

6. You can't see anything.

There are buildings upon buildings and sometimes you have to look straight up just to see the sky.  Back home (unless you live near the mountains) you can usually see the horizon.  Even in the bush, there's always something to see.  But in the city (not so much in small towns), there's just man-made stuff everywhere.  There's so little of God's creation to see that you almost don't notice it at all.  I actually didn't realize that there were trees in the city until a friend of mine (who grew up in the city) was talking one day about how he likes to drive around and look at all the trees along the streets.  Actually, if you have a friend who grew up in the city, they can point out a lot of interesting things that we can't even see until they do.  

7. Things change really fast.

You can live in an area for months while you go to school, go home for the summer, come back and barely even recognize the area.  The people of the city are always building and updating stuff.  Back home, it's big news when a neighbour knocks down a patch of bush or plows up a pasture.  In the city, change is just normal.  I don't know if that's good or bad.  Maybe it just is what it is.

8. There's almost always something to do.

We've all seen the movies where some city slicker comes to visit relatives on the farm and complains because "there's nothing to do."  We also all know that there's always something to do on the farm; but that's usually work.  In the the city, and even in town, there are endless ways to entertain oneself if you have the desire to do so.  You can usually find someone nearby to hang out with.  There's mini golf, bowling, swimming, movies, plays, concerts, and stuff I don't even know about.  What I'm trying to say is that social activities aren't restricted to church and community hall suppers (not that there's anything wrong with those - some of my favourite events are the community hall suppers).

Well, I think 8 insights is enough for now.  I realize it sounds like I'm complaining about the city/town in a lot of those.  I suppose I am.  I prefer to live in the country, but life's not all bad here.  It's just different and takes some getting used to.

Are female farmers feminists?

I have been thinking about this question for a while: Am I a feminist because I want to be a farmer?  This question, although not fully formed until recently, has been stewing in the back of my mind for more years than I can figure.  I'm not entirely sure how this question began to form.  Most likely it began at some point in my childhood when I started to realize that men and women are different and that, traditionally, they have very different roles.  When I was young, I wanted to be a farmer, a hockey player, a police officer, and a doctor.  Over time, I gave up on all of these dreams.  The only hockey players I ever saw were men (and I can barely skate).  Most of the police officers I knew were men (and I'm not the firm, authoritative type).  Most of the doctors I have had are men (and somewhere along the way I connected doctors with pain - not an ideal career choice).  Yes, I even gave up on being a farmer.  In high school I decided to believe that farming was just too hard for women.  Besides, everyone said I shouldn't be a farmer.  "Leave it to the men," was the message that was so often hidden in the discouraging commentaries sent my way.  So I gave up.  I enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts degree with the plan to be a teacher, a most acceptable career in the eyes of my critics.  Even so, I always planned to return to the farm.  There were people who even discouraged me from that, though.

I feel as though I am beginning to ramble.  Allow me, if you will, to tell a few stories to bring my point back into focus.

It is June 2010.  I am about to graduate from high school.  The church, as usual, is having a graduation Sunday, a day when all of us who are graduating are celebrated during the service.  We had to provide a short plan of what our futures will look like for the power point presentation (you know, that inevitable slideshow of baby pictures and current photos for everyone to see).  My future plan says something along the lines of, "Valerie plans to attend the King's University College in Edmonton, get a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Education after-degree, and then will return to take over the farm."  For most of the graduates, the slides with their plans are met with a collective and approving "hmm."  That is not what happens when my slide pops up on the screen.  The congregation responds in the same way that individuals have been responding to my plans to take over the farm for years: they let out a collective chuckle.  Now, I'm not talking about a chuckle that says, "oh, that's a good joke...that's not going happen," or even "oh Valerie, what are we going to do with you?  I guess you'll do what you want."  Oh no.  It is one of those chuckles that I myself have emitted while listening to the grand schemes of my uncle's young grandchildren.  It is a chuckle that clearly says, "aw, that's cute...it'll never happen, but it's cute that she thinks it will."  I am mortified and angry.  I know that no one would ever chuckle that way for a young man with the same plans.  I think this is what made me start fighting to make it okay for me, a woman, to be a farmer.

Fast forward a few years.  I have discovered that teaching is most emphatically not for me.  I have decided to put my full career efforts into the farm.  I will run a market garden.  There is some opposition to this.  My mom isn't too happy about it at first.  She worries about me.  It's a mom thing.  Other people are against it too, though.  No one ever confronts me to my face, but comments get back to me.  My sister tells me of a relative who, being concerned for my health and safety, has questioned her about my intent to do such a physically demanding job.  I am a little amused about that one.  In my mind, market gardening isn't even "real" farming (although I know it is a very difficult job).  I mostly ignore the opposition.

Fast forward a few months.  I am not enjoying my horticulture classes.  Oh, some of them are interesting, but I go to Bible Study and listen to the Aggies (students of agriculture, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term) talk about their classes and I am completely fascinated.  I start thinking about switching to Agricultural Management.  It will mean an extra year of school (that will be six years of post-secondary school in total).  And am I really ready to make that kind of commitment?  I've already had a few serious accidents on the farm.  Every day I will put my life on the line, working around machinery, climbing ladders on granaries that were not made for anyone of my short stature, working around cattle several times my size and strength.  Is it worth it?  I finally decide that it is and make the arrangements to switch programs at the end of the school year.  My dad is, to my shock, immensely relieved by my decision.  Apparently he wasn't too keen about turning his "real farm" into a market garden.  Outside of my home, the opposition really starts to pour in.  At first, I don't notice the difference.  There has always been opposition.  In fact, I am noticing more support.  People who think it's great that there's going to be a girl farmer are eager to tell me how great they think it is.  The opposition goes underground for a while because my family is respected in the community.

I think this was the point when the idea of feminism really started pushing it's way forward in my mind.  I began to see that people thought I was doing something extraordinary.  In case you are one of those people, let me tell you that I am not trying to be or do anything special and it makes me very uncomfortable when you act like I'm some sort of example for young girls who want to get into non-traditional careers.  I'm not sure, but I think that those who support me and those who oppose my decisions assume that I am some sort of feminist.  I'll tell you right now that I'm not.  Now let me explain how I came to that conclusion.  I first really formed the question, "am I a feminist because I want to be a farmer?" in it's entirety sometime in this past year.  I began to encounter older folks in the community, both men and women, who are very firm in their beliefs that there are some roles that women shouldn't (or shouldn't have to) take on.  Never in my hearing has the topic of women farmers come up, but the idea that I ought to know my place because women will never be as good as men at certain things has been made abundantly clear.  I have been told by an older friend of my parents that there are people who say, "Valerie shouldn't be a farmer; it's not right for a woman to do that."  (This particular individual thinks it's great that I want to be a farmer).  While doing field work this summer I listened to a sermon on the radio that was a vicious attack on the feminist movement.  It was very interesting, but I didn't really believe all of the evidence presented to prove that "feminism is a work of the devil."  While it was mildly amusing and rather infuriating, the sermon stirred me to start really looking at what I was doing.  I don't want to cause division in the church or in the community.  I needed to know why I was doing what I was doing and decide if I'm a feminist or not.

Not knowing where to start, I began seeking out what the Biblical role of women is supposed to be.  Have you ever done that?  Let me tell you, it's very confusing.  I still have not come to any conclusions about that.  All I know is that women are meant to do more than sit back and keep their mouths shut.  What that "more" is, though, I have no idea.  I probably won't ever have a conclusive opinion about this, but I do believe that men and women are to work in partnership and that God has made us different for a reason.  Physically, men are stronger and they have been given authority over women, in a way.  Please note, I said, "in a way."  I, as a woman, am not subject to every man I come across.  I am under my father's authority and when I marry, I will trust my husband to lead me (though I surely won't follow blindly - more about this later).

Feeling a little stuck, I decided to look up the definition of feminism.  The Oxford Canadian Dictionary defines feminism this way: "1. the advocacy of equality of the sexes, esp. through the establishment of the political, social and economic rights of women. 2. the movement associated with this."  Okay.  That doesn't sound so bad.  Sounds pretty fair, actually.  But it's not realistic.  As I said, men and women are built and wired differently.  We aren't equal and even if every job in the world is done by 50% men and 50% women, we will still never be equal because we were not created to be equal.  Each of us is uniquely created for a role that only God fully understands.  Because I cannot believe in equality of the sexes, I am not a feminist.  I will be a farmer.  Have no doubt about that.  I am capable of doing that.  However, I know that a man could do the job much more easily than I could.

People tell me I need to marry a farmer.  I can't lie.  That offends me...but it also draws me.  Boy, it would be convenient to marry a farmer, especially if he didn't have a farm to go back to.  He could run the farm.  I would help him and leave the major decisions to him (although if he ever wanted to get rid of the cows or knock down the bush or sell the homestead quarter, he would be getting a piece of my mind in a hurry).  I really would be okay with being a submissive (but not oppressed) wife and taking on the more feminine role of running the household, while also working in the fields with my husband.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what and who God has in mind for me.  I might end up marrying the most clueless (about farm stuff) city slicker there is.  I might never marry at all (cue a collective gasp and panic among my relatives).  Whatever happens, I sincerely hope that when the time comes, I am ready for whatever God has in store for me.

If you've made it this far in the post, let me thank you for sticking with it.  I know this a long one.  I'm nearly finished.  Let me simply end by recapping what I've said:

• I want to be a farmer.
• I know farming is hard work.
• I know there are those who think I can't or shouldn't be a farmer.
• I know there are those who think I don't know my place.
• They are right.  I don't exactly know what I'm supposed to be doing, but I don't think I'm disobeying God.
• I am not a feminist.  I know there are differences between men and women that will never and should never be equalized.

Finally, let me say one final word about the naysayers: I know they don't understand.  I know they talk to other people about what they think.  If someone says something to you about what they think I should or should not be doing, please ask them to bring their questions and opinions to me.  Yes, they will probably hurt my feelings, but it hurts a lot more to hear it second-hand.  Please ask them to respect me enough to say whatever they've got to say to my face.

Thank-You

Often when I sit down to write a blog post, the words form a rant and I have to erase them and begin again.  Sometimes the rant is missed and is published, but usually I catch it and take it away in time.  Why?  I delete my rants because rants are annoying and it's embarrassing to see that I haven't got the self-control to keep them to myself.  I want this blog to be a place where I calmly present my thoughts to whoever it is that reads it.  Also, I don't want my mom to get after me if my rants go too far; I know she reads every post.

This morning I listened to a rant.  An older gentleman in the community, who is quite respected, was talking to my mom about Remembrance Day and about how few people actually take time to remember the sacrifices of those who died for our freedom.  As he got more worked up, he eventually let loose with this absurd statement: "I blame the media and the universities for making this just another holiday...those liberal arts universities have faculty members that are just, well, socialist!"  As you can imagine, I was a little shocked.  I went to university.  In fact, I went to a liberal arts university.  My professors certainly weren't socialists.  And there wasn't exactly a lack of respect surrounding Remembrance Day - or was there?  Actually, there were a lot of pacifists among the professors and students (not that I have anything against pacifism; I rather dislike war myself) and they never acknowledged Remembrance Day.  Every year I would forget my poppy at home and have to come home in time to get it or get a new one somewhere.  Every year, my poppy seemed to stick out like a sore thumb as soon as I walked into school.  No one ever called me out for my display of respect in the week leading up to November 11 (although someone did once accuse me of just wearing the poppy because it was what everyone was doing - though at the time there wasn't another poppy in sight).  I figured if no one judged me for wearing a poppy, then I couldn't judge them for not wearing one.  

That always bothered me a little, though.  Here were people who could choose whether they would join the army or not, who could vote in leaders with peaceful tendencies, who would do anything to avoid killing another human being, and they couldn't even take the time to just remember that there were men and women who died to give them those rights.  The pacifists, if you ask them, will say that they don't wear poppies because they don't want to celebrate war.  Fair enough.  I don't want to celebrate war.  But when did pausing to remember sacrifice and our own history become celebration? It didn't.  Remembrance Day has never been a celebration.  It has always been a solemn day of quiet reflection and sometimes, of mourning.

Since I have a history degree, I would ask my readers to indulge me as I go into a few history-based reasons that I remember the soldiers who sacrificed for me.

There have been few times when the Canadian government conscripted soldiers, but it has happened in major times of war.  Those times are moving into the distant past, with few survivors left, but we know that when the government conscripted soldiers, they made exceptions for the farmers.  Our leaders realized that if they could not feed their country and the troops (not to mention the troops of our allies, whose homelands had been ravaged by war), there would be nothing left to fight for.  So, they let the farmers stay home.  Sometimes it seems like agriculture is an afterthought in government policy, but in times of crisis we remember that we need to eat.  I remember because I want to thank those who fought, were injured, and died while the farmers stayed back.  I remember because I want to thank the farmers who kept our nation going while their friends and sons were gone, perhaps never to return again.

The other reason I remember is more personal.  My opa was a soldier.  He left his wife and infant son and joined the army to fight for his homeland because his government told him to.  My opa fought in the Second World War.  He fought for the Nazis.  Sometimes, Remembrance Day is a little awkward for me because we are remembering and thanking soldiers who, had they been able, would have killed my opa because they were fighting for their homelands.  I don't know if my opa fought because he was forced to, or to defend his home, or because the government said he had to.  I never knew my opa, so I couldn't ask.  But Opa survived the war.  He joined his family, who had been forced to flee to Germany from their farm in Poland.   A few years later, he moved his family to Canada.  He could bring them here for a better life because soldiers from so very far away fought to end the evil intent of a few men.  Opa was able to come to Canada because thousands of others went to Europe and never came home.  I remember because there are soldiers who have fought to keep our nation free so that other immigrants can make a new start here, too.

Finally, I remember because a few short weeks ago, our national sense of peace was shattered.  We were forced to realise that our freedom is not inherent and that in some way, it does have to be defended.  We have freedom of religion (I don't care how persecuted we Christians feel; we walk into church every Sunday with absolutely no fear because we are free to worship God here).  We have freedom of speech and freedom from attack.  I remember because I am free and others were killed or wounded so that I could be free.  

To the soldiers who have served and died; to the soldiers who have served and come back with wounds and scars; to the soldiers who put their lives on the line, even in ceremonial duties, thank-you.

Farm Fair

Ah, Farm Fair.  You will forever live in my fondest of childhood memories.

Every November Farm Fair International, along with the CFR, comes to Edmonton and almost every year my family spends a day going through the exhibits and sometimes we see the rodeo.  When I was a child, Farm Fair was magical.  As the years passed, it became more...commercialized.  Each year, the agricultural exhibits seem to be fewer in number, while the number of vaccuum cleaner companies and sellers of pots and pans steadily increases.  Each year I leave a little disappointed, but I keep going back because Farm Fair is tradition. So it was that my parents and I journeyed to the city today to experience Farm Fair 2014.

This time, it was different.  Yesterday I went to my last class of the day before heading home for the long weekend.  There were only five students in class.  Many had already left for the weekend.  Others had taken the day off from classes to attend Agri-Trade, which I've heard is like Farm Fair, but better and takes place in Red Deer at the same time as Farm Fair.  To reward those of us who actually bothered to show up to class, our professor revealed a bonus assignment.  For those who would attend Agri-Trade on the weekend, we could gather promotional materials and business cards from five  booths that we visited and hand them in to prove that we actually talked to people.  I knew I wouldn't make it to Agri-Trade, so I asked my professor if I could do the assignment at Farm Fair instead.  He said I could.

When my parents and I arrived at Farm Fair today, I started to worry.  How could I do this assignment? Anyone who knows me knows that I don't talk much.  The mere thought of talking to new people has me in a near panic.  And my parents would be watching my failure and trying to rescue me and then they would end up basically doing it for me and then of course I couldn't hand it in.  We walked through all of the exhibits and checked out some bulls and all the while, I stubbornly refused to even try to talk to anyone.  I finally gave up.  It was only a bonus assignment, anyway.  I don't really need the extra marks.  But, I did have to get special permission to do the assignment at Farm Fair.  So now my professor will be expecting me to hand something in.  I have to do it!  Oh, the horror!

Around three in the afternoon, I left my parents behind, promising to meet up with them in half an hour and set of to do the assignment and go talk to people.  There was one hall in Northlands in particular that had a whole bunch of booths all together.  I went there first.  I walked up and down through the two short rows of booths, trying to get up some courage and think of intelligent questions to ask.  I passed by a booth advertising CowBytes 5 (a computer program that I had heard a little about in livestock class) and after rather creepily walking past it a few times, I walked over and asked as intelligent a question as I could.  It wasn't a very good one, but I kept on and eventually asked how the program works.  Apparently that's a magic question that gets you the full attention of the representative.  I finally got through the conversation with the representative with a good deal more knowledge and a small handful of papers.  I felt pretty good about that until I realized that there were four more booths to go.  

Next, I found a demonstration of GrowSafe, a feeding/testing system that is used at the college farm.  We have been introduced to the system, but never got much information about it.  I had to wait a long time to talk to the representative.  It gave me time to think of some good questions and to call my Mom and ask for an extra half hour (it was already 3:30).  That conversation was a bit harder, but I got through it okay and left with more knowledge and papers.  

My next stop was at the booth for Verified Beef Production's On-Farm Food Safety Program.  This, too, was something I had heard of at school.  I asked the representative how a person would get into the program.  That led to a rather confusing conversation about qualifying for some contest.  I finally asked the question again, a little more clearly and then explained that I was a student at Olds College and wanted to learn more about the program because we had only really been told about it in passing.  That was another magical sentence because by the time I left that booth, my handful of papers was significantly thicker.

By this time I had exhausted my options in that hall of booths.  There weren't any other booths that met my two personal criteria for approaching: (1) the booth should be relevant to me and (2) it must be manned by an actual human being.  Earlier in the afternoon, my dad and I had been checking out some Hi-Hog squeeze chutes, so I went back to that exhibit, found a representative and learned some fun stuff about the manual and hydraulic chutes.  Four down, one to go.

For my last conversation, I was momentarily stumped about where to go.  Then I remembered that we had walked by a display of alfalfa pellets at one point.  I searched around until I found the booth and talked to the representative.  That conversation also got off to an awkward start, until I threw out the whole "I'm a student looking to learn more about this" explanation.  That got me an exceptional conversation and a pamphlet and business card to add to the pile.  I was done.

Feeling rather proud of myself, though slightly frazzled and stressed out from having to talk to so many strangers all by myself, I worked my way through the crowd to the designated meeting place and found my parents finishing off some ice cream - without me.  No matter.  I still got to go through Farm Fair and this year, it was magical again.  Oh, the displays were still a bit disappointing and overly commercialized, but I learned more than ever before and some of it was even a little fun.  And I did it myself.  My bundle of pamphlets and business cards is sitting on the coffee table now, ready to be organized and handed in for my bonus marks.  Yes, it was a stressful experience, but in the evening, I got to let off steam in a way that I haven't been able to in almost two years.  When I was working on my history degree in Edmonton, I used to come downstairs at my uncle's house late in the evening and hold my cousin's new baby boy and just forget the stress of the day.  Tonight we went and visited my aunt, who happened to be be babysitting that very same little boy and I got to play with him and read to him and just forget about my homework for awhile.  Today was a good day to be a farmer, even if it was hard.  And it was an even better day to be a cousin.

Learning

I've been learning a lot lately.  That's probably a good thing, considering that I'm in school.  The cool part about the learning, though, is that it isn't all happening at school.  I want to talk about some of the different learning experiences I've had in the past few months.  To keep it simple, I'll stick to instances in which I've learned about agriculture-related things.

1. School

This one's pretty obvious.  I mean, the whole point of going to school is to learn, right?  I have to admit, though, that I never expected to learn as much as I am.  Somehow, I always figured that whatever I would learn at school, I would just learn again at home (and vice versa).  The only thing I knew I wouldn't learn from my dad is everything computer-related (sorry Dad).  But, I'm learning so much more and it's exciting and interesting and sometimes it makes my brain hurt.  Do you know how many business-related classes I have to take?  Let me fill you in on a few of them.  There's Agricultural Management Principles (read, hardcore economics), Agribusiness Accounting (our professors like to remind us that we will be in charge of multi-million dollar businesses), Workplace Communication, Principles of Marketing, Advanced Product Marketing, and more!  And that's not even counting all of the crop science, animal husbandry and simple ag mechanics courses I have to take!

I have a confession to make.  When people used to tell me that I'm too smart to be a farmer, I used to believe them.  Once upon a time, so very long ago, when I was in high school (okay, so it was only about seven years ago that this happened) I had a friend from town with whom I loved to argue.  One day we were talking before church and he said, "I think farming must be the easiest job in the world."  As you might imagine, I nearly took his head off for that and quickly set him straight.  In an effort to calm me down (and perhaps save himself from my wrath) this friend quickly amended his statement: "Oh, I know it's physically hard, but I mean mentally it's one of the easiest jobs out there.  I mean, you just drive the tractor all day and don't think about anything."  That had me so mad that I just sat back in my chair and didn't say anything.  I wasn't particularly mad at my friend, though.  I was mad because I had no good response.  At that point, I just did whatever my dad told me to and really, I did just drive the tractor all day with nothing to think about (unless, of course, the tractor broke down).  Since then, I have been slowly learning that my friend was indeed wrong.  There is so much to think about and to know to become a successful farmer!  Most of what I have learned regarding this has been in the last little while in school, as I contemplate my future as a farmer, rather than a farm hand.

2. The Farm

Working for my dad the past four summers and growing up on the farm has allowed me to learn more than I even know.  I learned to drive standard before I could drive automatic (to save my city friends from an  alarming case of high blood pressure, I won't tell you how old I was when I started to operate the heavy equipment on which I learned to drive).  I can tell what's wrong with a piece of equipment when it breaks down (given enough time to investigate), and can occasionally figure out how to fix it.  I have learned some basic carpentry skills (no thanks to the shop classes I took in Jr. High that gave me a terror of power tools).  There's so much else that I have learned in my work and in listening to my dad, but a lot of it is random snippets of information that I can only remember when I need them.  It always amazes me to think of how much my dad knows.  I can only hope to one day keep as much knowledge in my brain as he does.  And he didn't even finish high school!

A lot of other things that I have learned on the farm I don't even remember learning.  It is so natural to have these skills that I don't even realize that they are special until I talk to someone who doesn't have those skills.  That brings me to the next section of learning:

3. Talking with City Slickers

First off, I mean no disrespect when I use the term "city slickers."  It's just what you are.  My professor calls you urbanites, but that just sounds odd.  Now that that's cleared up, I must explain what it is that I have learned from interacting with city slickers.  Often when I talk about all that I do on the farm, I run into some city slicker that stares at me in awe and says that they can't believe I know how to do all of that.  Really?  You're impressed that when the neighbour was away at work and the cows got out and his wife didn't know what to do, I went over, chased the cows back in, fixed the fence, and fed the cows?  That's not impressive.  It's normal to be able to do all that - right?  Apparently not, because there were people who were impressed that I did all that.  It was weird.

The other night I was talking with someone who recently moved to Calgary from Toronto.  We were talking about learning to drive and I'm afraid I may have shocked her a bit when I told her that it's totally normal for farm kids to learn to drive early and that we operate equipment when we are still fairly young (again, I won't specify ages).  It was very strange for me to realize that the skills I assume are normal, might not be, especially in the city.

Finally, it is interesting to learn what city slickers think about agriculture.  Do they think we all live on idyllic acreages, raising crops and animals in primitive conditions?  I know that children are still taught that farms have cows, horses, dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, ducks AND chickens.  At home, we have cows, dogs, and cats.  And we used to have horses.  Almost no one has that many different animals on the farm anymore.  Then there are the people who think we all live and work on "factory farms," where we keep animals in cramped conditions and ruthlessly pollute the environment.  Yes, these things do happen, and the media goes wild with such stories, but it's not normal.  The people I most enjoy talking to are the ones who know that they haven't got a clue what happens on the farm and are interested in learning and in sharing what they have heard.  

4.  Farm Friends

Here at Olds College, I've made friends with a lot of farm kids, most of whom somehow know a lot more than I do about farming.  Sometimes it's almost embarrassing how little I know about farming compared with these friends, especially when it comes to talking about equipment.  This Sunday after church some of my classmates invited me to hang out with them at Tim Horton's.  I ended up being the only girl there, which was a bit strange, but it was sure a fun and educational experience.  The young men covered every topic from cattle dogs  to trucking.  At one point (during an intense discussion about air seeders that I was barely able to follow), they asked me what kind of seeder my family uses.  My embarrassed answer was, "Um, not an air seeder," which the guys correctly interpreted as, "oh, so you use a seed drill instead.  What kind?"  This took a little more thought, but I eventually answered, "I think it's an International.  It's red."  I still can't believe that was best answer I could give.  The best part of these kinds of conversations is that I am challenged to learn more so that I can actually contribute to an intelligent farming conversation.  For the record, I called my dad later that day to find out what kind of machinery we have.  I now have a list to study as soon as midterms are over.  Next time, I'll be ready: "What kind of seeder do we use?  Why, we have an International 6200 drill."

I'm sure that there are many other situations in which I have learned about agriculture, but my brain is too full of midterm exams to think of them.  For now, I hope this list is sufficient to adequately express how much I have learned and to explain that farming is not the easiest job out there (mentally or otherwise).

Barriers

I was talking to an acquaintance from Olds College one evening several months ago.  He grew up in a town, but has spent a lot of time working on his relative's farm.  Because of this, he is quite knowledgeable and can hold his own in a conversation with farmers.  He has also come to love farming.  Even though we met at Olds College, neither of us were in the Agricultural Management program at the time.  I was in the horticulture program, planning to switch to Ag. Management and he was in another program.  In our conversation that night, I asked him, "If you like farming so much, why aren't you in the ag. management program?  Why not become a farmer?"  This young man gave me an answer that told me he had given up on his dream of farming long ago.  He said, "It's different for me than it is for you or any of those other kids who have farms to go home to.  I'd have to start from scratch, buy all the land I need, and the equipment and everything else and that's just too expensive."  I tried to argue: "Well, it's not as if my dad will just hand the farm over to me.  I'll have to pay for everything, too.  Nothing is given to us who grow up on the farm."  He acknowledged that I was right, but reminded me that there is a difference between paying the bank and paying your parents for land.  I had no response to this and the conversation ended on that discouraging note.

Later that spring, a number of my friends and acquaintances from Olds College had gathered for a wiener roast before we left school for the summer.  We were talking about how the year had gone.  One girl, who was about to graduate from the ag. management program mentioned something about how she sometimes worried that she would not be able to make it as a farmer, because it is hard for girls.  I was surprised that she would so closely echo my own inner struggle as I prepared to switch programs shortly.

There are many "barriers to entry," as economists call them, to the agriculture industry.  Land is one of the biggest barriers.  It is insanely expensive and these days, as I am learning at school, you need a lot of it just to be able to make back your costs of production if you are raising traditional crops.  The costs to produce crops and livestock (even if the land is paid for) are enormous and the pay is often poor.  Farmers are limited in their opportunities to dictate what price they will take for their crops.  We are "price takers," generally forced to sell our crops at whatever price the market dictates, even if it means selling at a loss.  And for those of you in the city, you should know that only a small fraction of what you pay for your food at the grocery store gets back to the farmers.  Even if we can pay for the land, equipment, seed, labour, supplies, machinery expenses, and everything else, our struggle to enter and remain in the industry is far from over.  We work long hours with slim margins and put our lives in danger every day to produce the food and fibre products that everyone needs and demands.  Five minutes of hail can wipe out an entire crop.  One bad winter storm can take out an entire herd.  The smallest mistake, as I have learned, can have us staring death in the face.  Every farmer faces all these difficulties and more.  So why do we do it?  Why do we enter the industry?  We do it because farming is not just an industry.  It is a lifestyle.  And while that lifestyle is often brutal and uncompromising and the eyes of the public are ever upon us, judging our methods of production, for some of us it is the only lifestyle worth living.

Female farmers have it worse.  On top of the economic and physical barriers to becoming a farmer, we face various sociological and cultural barriers.  I have no idea how many times people have told me that I need to marry a farmer or that I would make a good wife (as I wipe the crumbs off of a table, because that's so important to being a good wife).  I don't know how many people are talking about me behind my back, saying that it's not right that I should be a farmer or that they don't think I can do it because it's too hard.  These people don't know that I know what they are saying, but it gets back to me all too often.  Even my family seems to have a hard time imagining me farming without the help of a husband or my dad.  I try not to think about all of this, but I know that one day I will be finished with school and I will have to do a lot of the work on my own.  I will have to some how come up with enough money to pay for the land and equipment and cattle that I will buy from my dad.  In addition to that, I will need to be able to make enough money from my crops and cows to pay off the expenses that I will incur in raising them.  I am small and not particularly strong and how on earth am I supposed to do the work of a man?  I can't even climb up the granary because the steps are too far apart for me to reach (I tried it the other weekend)!  Sure, Dad will be there.  At first.  He's an old(ish) farmer.  There's no way he'll just up and retire.  That just doesn't happen.  But one day, hopefully not for a very long time, but one day nonetheless, he will not be there to help me.  What then?  Will I be all alone?  Will I run the family farm into the ground?  There are so many questions that bump around in my mind some days that I am sure it will never work.  These barriers aren't just hurdles that need to be jumped, nor even mountains to be climbed.  They are a solid wall, hundreds of feet high, holding me back.  I do not wish to be some extraordinary, inspiring woman.  I want only to be a farmer.

Despite these worries and barriers, there are some days when I sit in class, soaking in all that I am learning and some how finding hope.  I stare at that big wall and think that maybe, just maybe, I can get around it.  That's where I am right now.  I've got ideas ready to burst forth, ways of making it work.  Maybe the barriers don't have to be so big.  Maybe I can sneak around them.  I may do it all alone or I may one day marry a farmer (or a man of some other profession), as so many people want me to.  How ever I do it, I will be a farmer.  No one is going to tell me, "I told you so."  I won't quit, no matter hard it gets.  And yes, I do get discouraged, especially when I hear from those of you who think I can't be a farmer.  But you should know that all you are doing is making me more determined.  So go ahead.  Keep telling me I can't.

A New Adventure

I started this blog as a student of horticulture.  I have since discovered that horticulture is not my field.  With a three year bachelor of arts degree and one year of a diploma in horticulture under my belt, I enrolled in the two-year agriculture diploma at Olds College.  While I wallow through economics and accounting (grudgingly admitting to myself that these classes will eventually come in handy), I live for my crops and livestock classes, eagerly looking forward to learning all I can about these subjects.  When I go home for a weekend, it's always exciting to put what I have learned into practice and to learn more from my dad.  I appear to have my field of work: farming.  Good old-fashioned farming, with a few crops, a few animals, and a fairly small amount of land.  Somehow my dad doesn't need specialty crops to make money on his three quarter sections.  Somehow, I hope to accomplish the same and keep the family farm going as it has been for decades.  As a woman, I know this will be difficult.  Some days the impossibility of the task rises up and threatens to choke my dreams, and yet I cannot let go.