I grew up in a Mecca of agriculture. If you lived in that community and were not involved in farming of some sort it was because you moved in or had decided not to continue what your father or grandfather began.
I'll spend some time on the history of my dad's side as it relates to this topic, here: My paternal grandfather came from Denmark when he was very young and my paternal grandmother came from a prominent Northwest Cache County LDS polygamist family.
My grandfather ended up in this community working for farmers; my grandmother's family helped settle that part of Cache County and were farmers of that region from the get-go.
There are stories in grandma's family history about living in the area now known as the "Long Divide" (the NW Cache to NE Box Elder thoroughfare), and how they had to deal with bears and lions and other predators, to prevent losses to the sheep and cattle.
My grandfather met my grandmother and the rest is history, so to speak. With my grandmother's significant number of siblings - and she being a she - most of the farm ground the family owned went to the boys of the family.
My grandfather loved farming and helped my grandmother's family on their land as often as he could. With grandma's family land all tied up, he looked to other occupations for income. He worked with the railroad for many years, as well as starting a chicken and egg producing family business to sell the products.
My grandmother was a teacher in NW Cache County schools to augment the family income - leaving an awful lot of the work in the chicken project to my dad and his two sisters.
My dad served in Korea during the war; once back home he completed an LDS mission to his dad's homeland of Denmark; then met my mother and the rest is almost history.
Dad wanted to farm, but lacked the ground to call his own, so he helped relatives as often as he could. My mother grew up in Smithfield, UT, also a daughter of a farming family. She was no stranger to the work required to farm, but she did not retain any rights to the land her dad farmed.
To provide for the family dad finished his education degree at USU; taught school in Garland Utah for awhile; decided that was not his life's dream so he operated the service station in our town for several years; he sold insurance somewhere in there as well, finally he worked at Cache Valley Cheese in the shipping department.
He loved his horses, he loved to have a cow or two around to feed out and then use for beef in the freezer. He started a family food project in the backyard (a BIG garden). We raised chickens and turkeys just as he had when he was young. We had a supply of eggs which we ate as well as sold to others; we would process the turkeys in the late fall and sell them for holiday dinners.
The three of us boys (2 sisters, but they didn't work for farms) were involved in agriculture from when we were young. Taking care of our garden and animals, milking cows for various dairy farms in town, moving irrigation pipe, and all the other summer farm work. We had an almost endless supply of income opportunities within the small 2 mile radius of our town.
Later on my dad returned to his farming roots a bit when he started a side business to provide an opportunity for the middle son and myself to have summer work and more income for the family. We were custom hay haulers.
Dad bought a New Holland bale wagon (back when bales were hauled by hand and were small and manageable), and we went to work. We would contract with a farmer to haul their hay/straw bales from the field to the barn for a price per bale as well as mileage in cases where there were long transit times.
A year or so later we added a piece of equipment lovingly called a "stack retriever". I was the main operator of this device, and jokingly I still wonder why anyone - after having placed a stack of hay somewhere would care at all to have it "retrieved". Nonetheless it was a nice addition to the business, allowing us to save wear and tear on the bale wagon by using this vehicle to haul hay long distances.
The implementation of large bales and other circumstances terminated the usefulness of the operation, but it served it's purpose for our family while in operation.
What a life it was for a boy growing up in the outback of Cache Valley, to have a summer income working for farmers or working for my dad's contract hay hauling business. We learned a lot and we know how to work and get things done and we had fun. Who wouldn't enjoy perks like an afternoon swimming trip to the irrigation pond?
Now you have the basis for the next part of the story, which will include a description (as best as I can remember) of an event that happened in Richmond, Utah while I was in Dairy 4-H, at the famous Black and White Day's which is currently under way this week.
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