If I Was a Farmer's Wife

I've mentioned before that a lot of people tell me that I should marry a farmer.  I generally scoff at the idea and wiggle my way out of those conversations as quickly as possible.  I don't need to marry a farmer; I am a farmer.  Besides, that really narrows down my options.  However, I must admit that there are days, like today, when I find myself thinking, "I would make an amazing farmer's wife!"  I'm not trying to send out any hints here.  I'm just saying that I'd be good at it.  Allow me explain:

If I Was a Farmer's Wife:

My husband would be awfully well-fed.

Okay, so I'm not the best cook in the world, but I've done a lot of improving over the last few years (just ask my fellow students that I occasionally have over for supper).  Besides, I'm half German.  I will feed you full and then force more on you because that's how you're supposed to treat guests, don't you know.

The house would always be decently clean.

My close family members might scoff at this, but on the farm there are always neighbours dropping in and I hate to have guests, even neighbours, see a messy house.  On the other hand...

I wouldn't make too much of a fuss about messes in the house.

On the farm, things get dirty.  That's just a fact of life.  And I can live with a bit of organized messiness (anyone who has seen my room can confirm this).

My husband wouldn't need a hired hand.

He'd have me to help.  Bonus: I'm already trained in the technical skills, etc.

No topic would be banned from the supper table.

My dad and I are routinely banned from speaking about certain things when we're eating because Mom and Janna can't handle it (really, what's wrong with talking about trapping gophers over a good roast beef dinner?).  I can handle any grossness a farmer might throw at me (literally and figuratively).

I would understand.

When we have to miss church because the cows got out - I understand.  When suppers have to be wrapped up and taken to the field - I understand.  When everything is going wrong at once - I understand.  I've been there.

I could help.

I know what to do when things go wrong and I can help with whatever needs to be done.  Even if what I have to do is just wait, I can do that.  I've done it before.

Now, lest you begin to think, "She doesn't need a husband.  She's got it all under control herself,"  I must make one last point:

If I was a farmer's wife, I would need my husband.

I'd need him to reach things from the top shelf (because using a stool all the time is awful).  I'd need him to deal with the mice (the only rodent I have an issue with).  I'd need him to lift the heavy things, help me make decisions, and send me away when I get too frustrated for a job.  I can do all these things myself, but sometimes I think it would pretty nice to have a husband to help.

My dad does all of these things for me now, but I can't expect him to always be there, especially once he retires.  But, even if I marry a man who isn't a farmer, I think I'll feel like the most blessed woman on earth.

*Note to the family matchmakers:  Please be reminded that I am not hinting for you to go find me a husband.  These are just musings.  Calm down.  :)

Life as an Aggie

Disclaimer: No part of this post is meant to be a criticism of my school, teachers, or classmates.

"Aggie -(N Amer. informal) a student of agricultural science [abbreviation]" - Oxford Canadian Dictionary

Today I walked into my 8:00 am class and nodded a greeting to my professor, who was on his cell phone.  I sat down in my regular spot, pulled out my binder and iPad, found a couple of pens that had gone missing, and waited for class to start.  My professor (who is a veterinarian and probably fielding a work call) left the room and as I glanced up to see where he was going, I found myself face-to-face with a very life-like plastic cow head.

This thing was staring at me for an hour of class this morning...creepy, eh?

It was a bit creepy at first, but not really surprising.  In my second year of the Ag Management diploma, not very much surprises me anymore, especially in classes like Livestock Health and Disease.  The cow head got me thinking, though, about how being an Aggie is so different from any other educational experience.  I would like to share with my readers a bit about what it is like to be an Aggie.

My classroom is sometimes a barn.  Literally.

Most of the time, we have classes in lecture halls, just like everyone else.  But sometimes, we have class in the barn.  I'm not talking just about labs here.  This year some of the classes are so large that we don't all fit into the little classroom-type area in the Livestock Center, so there are tables and chairs set up in the barn, along with a projector, screen, and white board for the teacher to use.  Let me tell you what happens when a class has lectures in the barn:

• There are a lot of flies around.  That should end once winter comes.  Then we'll be wearing parkas to class (don't worry; the barn is heated...a little).
• If the door is left open a bit, animals walk in.  I don't mean cows; they're all locked up in their pens.  I mean animals of the cat and dog variety.  My professor had to shoo a dog out of the "classroom" just the other day.
• Since the barn is used for labs, we get to look at the bits of anatomy that the first-years were exploring earlier in the day if they haven't yet been disposed of.  That may sound gross, but it really isn't.  Well, not to me anyways.  Really, it's shocking how many squeamish people there are in my livestock classes.
• The internet is really slow on that end of campus, so everyone has to turn off the wi-fi on their cell phones so we can all have decent internet on our laptops and tablets.
• The floor is always dirty.  That's all I want to say about that.

Field trips are actually in fields (most of the time).

Sure, sometimes we go to downtown Calgary to look at successful business models and such, but often we get to visit farms, where we meet the farmers right in their fields or barns.  Sometimes we tramp around in random fields and pastures looking for grasses and such to identify.  It's pretty fun.

Boots are important.

Walking around campus I see all sorts of boots: work boots, rubber boots, steel-toed boots, winter rubber boots, and cowboy boots (of course).  We are required to have steel-toed work boots for certain classes (machinery classes, for example).  Rubber boots are also required and are just awfully nice to have on those days when we get to go tramping through muddy corrals or clean the barn after palpating cows.  In the winter, we wear insulated rubber boots for the same purposes.  Then there are the cowboy boots.  What can I say about them?  They are not required.  Running shoes are far more comfortable.  Those boots were not made for walking.  But they're just so stylish!  

Sometimes classes are held outside.

These are lab-type classes.  Do you remember being in high school and begging the teacher to let you have class outside on those warm, sunny spring days?  I get to have classes outside quite often.  The only thing is, it's not usually warm and sunny.  I've learned to use GPS without mittens on frigid fall mornings, checked the college cows during calving in the middle of winter (in the middle of the night), and stood hunched over my lab question sheet, trying to shield it from the rain as the teacher tried to make his explanation as quick as possible so we could all get inside.  When a teacher says, "dress for the weather on Tuesday," I listen.

The variety of classes is overwhelming.

For example, the following is a list of all of the Ag Management classes that I will have taken at Olds College by the time I graduate this spring:

• Workplace Communication
• Workplace Professionalism
• Principles of Marketing
• Range and Forage Crop Management
• Agricultural Management Principles (Economics)
• Survey of Agribusiness
• Agribusiness Accounting
• Advanced Product Marketing
• Principles of Animal Agriculture
• Environmental Farm Management
• Agribusiness Information Technology
• Agribusiness Planning and Management
• Beef Cattle Management
• Machinery and Technology
• Farmstead Management
• Livestock Health and Disease
• Livestock Breeding Strategies
• Precision Cropping Systems
• Principles of Soil and Crop Nutrition
• Agribusiness Financial Management
• Personal Selling and Customer Relations Management
• Introduction to Welding
• E-Marketing
• Field Crop Management
• Livestock Nutrition
• Introductory Pest Management

Need I say more? (At the end of this blog post I will post pictures that I have stored on my iPad from various classes.  WARNING:  If you are squeamish, skip that part of the blog!!)

Class presentations are actually interesting.

Okay, so there are still some boring presentations.  However, since a lot of us are going back to the farm, we get to do a bunch of major projects on our own operations and present them to the class.  It's like farmer show and tell.  I find them interesting.

Sometimes people don't show up for class for a week or two.

It's called harvest and it has a higher priority than classes.  The students always show up eventually and get caught up.

Students openly carry knives around with them and that's perfectly okay.

I don't really know what else to say about this.  It is what it is and what it is, is normal.

It gets a bit weird talking to students from other schools.

Once I was talking to a friend at church who is taking some kind of computer program at a school in Edmonton.  I was just starting to go glassy-eyed when he said something about "AI".  Now in tech language, AI is an abbreviation for artificial intelligence.  I knew that, but all I could think of was the agricultural definition of AI, which is not something one normally discusses in church.  That conversation got pretty awkward pretty fast.

- - - - - -

I could go on about life as an Aggie, but for now I think I'll wrap it up before I get too long-winded.  I hope you had fun looking into my life for a few minutes!

As promised, here are some random pictures from my classes (WARNING: Not for the faint of stomach!!):

Country at Heart

Disclaimer: This post will likely turn into a bit of a rant and will probably offend a few people, even some good friends of mine.  I'm sorry.  I have no better way to say what I'm thinking.

I've heard this phrase from a lot of people over the years: "I'm from the city, but I'm a country boy/girl at heart."  Every time I hear that I cringe a little on the inside.  The cringe comes from two places.  First, it comes from confusion.  Second, it comes from that little part inside of me that (I'm ashamed to admit) looks down on such folks and says, "you have no idea what you're talking about."  Let me explain.

I'm confused when people call themselves "country at heart."  What does that even mean?  Am I country at heart?  I don't know.  I grew up in the country.  I like being out of town better than being in town.  I like nature.  I drive a pick-up truck and listen to country music.  My favourite pair of pants are jeans and I happen to think that cowboy boots are pretty fashionable.  Does all of that make me "country at heart"?  I don't really think it does.  I think those are just things that were normally around  when I was growing up and they became a part of me as I grew.


Or maybe when people talk about being "country at heart" they mean those elusive, yet admirable characteristics with which people endow the ideal cowboy.  You know the one I mean: that gruff, weathered old man whose handshake is his promise, who helps a neighbour out of trouble, takes no garbage from anyone, and is generally respected by everyone.  It's a well-known ideal, idolized by many who call themselves "country at heart".  I call it just being a good person.  I like to think I'm a good person as a result of my faith in God.  Regardless of one's reason for acting like a decent human being, there are plenty of people who are quite respectable, hardworking, and honest.  Those qualities need not be reserved for cowboys and farmers.


Now for the part that I'm ashamed to admit: I'm a bit of a snob.  Aside from my confusion about what it means, I guess I don't really mind if some people call themselves "country at heart".  However, when those people come from the city, I have to wonder if they have any idea what they are talking about.  Do they know what they mean when they say that?  Are they talking about ideals and missing the good qualities of people from their own neighbourhoods?  Do they just mean they like fresh air and trees?  Maybe they mean they like the country life in general: the people, the fresh air, the open spaces, and the farming community.  That's where I turn into a bit of snob.  How can anyone who grew up in the city know a thing about what it is to live the country life?  How can they understand the various hardships and frustrations that meet us in each season and across many years?  Yes, there are many city folk who spend time in the country, working on farms or at summer camps, but they rarely stay year-round.  You can't understand what country life really is until you live in the country through the good years and the bad, making finances stretch impossibly far and doing things you'd never even think needed doing.


I've ranted enough now.  I'm not even sure what I really want to say on this topic.  Maybe I'm trying to say that the country isn't in one's heart.  The country is a harsh, brutal place to live and work, beautiful though it may be.  Yes, I love living and working on the farm and I wouldn't easily be persuaded to live in a city.  However, it's a hard life, and not at all like you see in the movies or on television.  If someone still wants to call themselves "country at heart,"  I'll try not to be a snob about it.  Just make sure you know what you mean.  The country doesn't hold a monopoly on beauty or desirable personal characteristics.

Taking Discussions Offline

I recently logged onto Facebook to see that one of my Facebook friends had re-posted an anti-GMO picture.  It's not the first time I've seen something like that on social media, but I must have been having a bit of a bad day because it made me a bit angry.  I left it alone for a while and then replied that evening, once I'd cooled down a bit, arguing that GMOs are not evil.  A bit of mild debate ensued in the comments of the post, but my friend and I quickly decided to take the conversation off of the internet.  I think we both realised that this is a subject that is far too complex for a social media site.  Also, it's almost impossible to convey tone over the internet and we didn't want the conversation to get unnecessarily heated.

So, this evening I made a trip to town and visited this friend and her husband to continue the discussion.  It was a lot calmer than discussions about GMO, organic, and other food issues often are. We were quickly able to find some common ground and exchanged information that we each had gathered over the years.  We all learned something by the end and then spent a lot of time just visiting over ice cream.  It was much better than having a heated debate over the internet.

I am of the opinion that it is really important to keep learning, especially about things that concern or confuse us.  The intenet is an amazing resource.  There's so much information out there.  Unfortunately, there's too much information out there.  Many facts are half-truths or don't tell the whole story and the vast amount of facts is simply overwhelming.  Combine the overwhelming amount of information with the inability to communicate tone and intent over the internet, and a lot of discussions that should be calm degenerate into angry "shouting matches" liberally sprinkled with capital letters, italics, and emoticons.

Social media sites are great for keeping track of people and randomly connecting with friends we don't see a lot.  It's even good for spreading some types of information.  But sometimes we need to take the conversations off of the internet, sit down face-to-face, and just talk.  The discussion stays calm, gets more in depth, and is liberally sprinkled with beverages, ice cream, and "how's your family".  Now, isn't that better than getting all worked up over a misinterpreted comment on a Facebook post?

Educating Non-Farmers (Part 2)

I had a guest a while ago.  Sara came for a few days to learn more about farming.  She shadowed me as I worked, joined my parents and me on a county tour, helped me get some stuff done, and asked my dad and me lots of questions.

As I was preparing for Sara's visit, I expected to teach her how to do things, and I was wondering how I would give her a decent picture of agriculture in just a few days.  I'm not sure I did a good job of showing Sara what farming culture really is or explaining all of the different aspects of agriculture.

Sara was able to learn the little bit that she did in a number of different ways.  First, she shadowed my dad and me as we worked, helping us haul bales, build a fence, pump water, and do myriad other tasks.  Through these tasks, Sara not only learned how to do things I take for granted (who knew that some people don't know how to use a hammer), she also learned things about daily farm life that farmers just don't even think to talk about.  For example, she learned to think twice about giving the farm dog kisses after seeing firsthand the joy he takes in rolling in fresh manure.  She also experienced the sudden ferocity of an Alberta hailstorm that caught us off-guard as we were fencing one afternoon.

The second way that Sara learned was through conversation as we worked.  I don't think I've ever talked so much in just a few days.  I'm still not back to my normal level of sociability yet.  All that talking took a lot out of me.  Anyway, as we worked, we had lots of conversations about how and why we do things (like why we make round bales and others make square bales), farming culture and community, and agriculture's hot topics (organic agriculture, hormone use, antibiotics, marketing, etc.).  Sara asked some pretty good questions.  There were a lot of topics that we covered that I've wanted to write about in this blog, but the misinformation that is out there is so overwhelming that I have no idea where to start.  I wish more people would just ask a farmer, "So what do you think about _____?"  We all have a perspective that the rest of the world hasn't even thought of.  Of course, not all questions are so complex.  Sometimes it's okay to ask the small, even slightly silly questions, too.  Anything is acceptable, as long as you are learning.  Even "do you rake the hay by hand?" is an okay question.

Finally, Sara had the chance to learn about farming culture and agriculture in a unique, once-a-year way, as she joined us on the annual Ag Service Board County Tour in Barrhead County.  We spent all day crowded into buses full of old farmers (and a few young ones), checking out what's happening in the county, from how the county is dealing with the pocket gopher infestation, to a super-cool farm packed with all sorts of antique farm equipment, to the county's gravel pits.  In between the many stops we made, I explained some stuff about hay and silage to Sara, introduced her to a few of my distant (and close) relatives (I think that overwhelmed her), and we talked about how farmers dress in our community.  In all, it was a very educational day.

I'm hoping that Sara didn't get overwhelmed by all I threw at her.  She seemed to be doing okay.  And by the last day, she was even doing a pretty good job of using a hammer on that fence (we finally finished it Sara!!).  I'm not sure if I'll ever have the chance to be "shadowed" again, but I hope I can continue to teach non-farmers what agriculture and farming culture is all about.

Dad teaching Sara how to splice a wire.

(Note: I should mention that Sara did know how to use a hammer and her skills with the hammer improved quickly through the week.  She's certainly not the worst hammer-handler I've ever seen.)