PEA RIDGE — All through the years I have listened to farmers talking about farming, and why they were farmers. I think most people like to get together with others whose work is like their own so they can talk shop, learn a few things from each other and engage in occasional gripe sessions.
Sometimes you catch a group of farmers at the coffee shop, sometimes at the repair shop, the sale barn and so on. I even remember farmers talking when we were at the Thursday night singings at Shady Grove schoolhouse in the 1940s.
Although one hears quite a bit of griping from farmers, about the low prices they get for what they produce, the high cost of equipment, farm loans, fuel, insurance, taxes and so on, I’ve also listened to what farmers say about why they want to farm. Of course, there has always been thebasic desire and need to provide a decent living for the family, a decent education for the kids and to put together a nest egg for one’s old age. But I’m especially thinking about how many farmers like the farm, and enjoy doing the things that farming involves.
One comment I used to hear quite often in the earlier days was “I like working for myself, I like being my own boss.” Farmers, especially those who own their land free and clear, often value the feeling of independence that being a farmer provides. Even with the multitude of problems they contend with, many prefer the farm way of lifeover the idea of taking a job working for someone else, working on a production line in a factory or working behind a desk every day.
Another comment that I remember hearing involved the feeling that there is something very respectable, healthy and satisfying about the vigorous work that farm life required.
Farmers have often felt some disdain for those who look for “easy” jobs, pencil-pushing jobs and so on. Of course as one whose main work has involved some pencil-pushing, some working behind a desk, as well as some leg-work seeing people in various circumstances, I can witness to the “real” work involved in those other occupations,like management, accounting, running a store, marketing goods, engaging in ministry and others. Interestingly, however, it seems to me that the old farmidea of good respectable, healthy and satisfying work still has much to commend it, even in these days of labor-saving conveniences and machinery that almost runs itself, where work is coming to be an ongoing task of deciding which buttons to push to get things done.
I think many farmers, whether they farm full time or part time, stick with farming not out of necessity and not just to make a living, but because there are things about farming that they enjoy. My dad started out in the 1930s as a general farmer, evolved into dairying in the ’50s, and into beef production in the ’70s. He finally retired from active farming when he turned 90years old. I think it was not that he couldn’t afford to retire, to travel, play golf and spend time on the lake, but because he enjoyed farming. He liked working withthe animals, and took satisfaction in working through the challenges of producing something useful. He enjoyed seeing things grow, and the great variety of activities that farm life involves.
While farming around Pea Ridge has never been an entirely self-sustaining way of life, it has given farmers a sense of working directly with the land to produce the goods needed for a family to live on. In earlier days, most of the food people ate was locally grown. Sometimes I think we are getting too far away from that idea of local production of our food. These days we eat things that have been shipped across the country, involving burninga lot of fuel for transportation, processing, packaging and so on. I still think there is something especially satisfying about vegetables fresh from the garden, grainfor bread harvested from your own fields and meats produced in your own feed lots.
I think my father-in-law Ray Patterson also had farming in his blood. Although he did other kinds of work as well, at the Pea Ridge Canning Plant, Pea Ridge Mill, Rogers Vinegar Co. and Strode’s Seed Store in Rogers, he was at his best when he was growing things in the garden, raising broilers and feeding cattle.
He used to produce about five times as much garden stuff as he and Zula could use, so he would give away much of the abundance. He loved having things growing around the garden and lawn, flowers, trees, shrubs, even though it all made work for him to do. Why do it? It just gets to be part of you.
Contact Jerry Nichols by e-mail at joe369@centurytel net, or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 01/06/2010