What would you say some of the advantages of growing up on a farm are, especially about working or being around animals?
This came up last night while going through some pictures. One was of a friend’s kid face to face with a goat, just before the goat butted her square in the head. It sounded like someone hitting a coconut with a bat. I know I’m terrible for laughing, but I couldn’t believe she was that lacking in knowledge of animals to put herself in that position. My s/o said to me “You’re a farmboy, you know these things. Most people don’t”. It made me stop and think. And it also made me think of the woman killed by the lion while driving in the park with the windows down. Um stop and think a bit. But if you’re not raised around different animals how do you know how to act around them?
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Well, you don’t. You learn the hard way.
Growing up with farm animals gets rid of the mystery of sex.
Not the angle I was approaching it from, but that is true. When we were picking out bulls to breed the cows with, or helping the cow calve, it taught us about the birds and the bees.
You learn every animal’s pleasure spot.
@Dutchess_III
I knew you had a naughty streak.
Well, I just remember Mom explaining what sex was, when I asked, when I was about 6. I was disgusted and mystified, all at the same time. It wasn’t until I was much older, and saw a stallion mount a mare that it clicked…“Oh! It gets hard!”
Well this is going in an interesting direction. And yeah, it gets hard in more than one way.
I do know it’s darned near impossible to throw a smell at me that will make me wretch. I can butcher my own animals if needed and am not grossed out at the prospect. I can weld, fix and/or farm-rig just about any piece of heavy diesel equipment to run (and most of the time work) I know what side of a horse to walk up to it on. I can predict the weather short term by the smell of the air (but not here in the city) I can tell when a bull is not in the mood to be messed with. And most importantly, I appreciate where our food comes from.
@majorrich Really good answer. I would add, as someone who grew up on or near farms and now am a devoted urbanite, that you can learn to predict weather from the smell of the concrete and brick, too. :)
One of the other things I learned from growing up among farmers is how much can be communicated between people who use very, very few words.
For the most part, you learn about the animals, you grow up with a pretty good work ethic,and like the others have pointed out you pretty much know about sex from an early age.
Patience. When I was a kid, I could spend two hours watching one grasshopper chew leaves. I see city kids, and they have no patience at all. If a movie goes for more than one minute with nothing more active than a simple conversation, they get fidgety and want to see something else. I could spend all day watching birds build a nest. City kids want to catch them, or shoot them, or go play video games.
I imagine that it teaches you that meat doesn’t really come from a grocery store packaged on styrofoam with plastic wrap. Meat starts out as living, breathing sheep, cows, pigs and chickens, some of which might be considered pets or even family members. They get slaughtered to become food.
While we never butchered or raised animals for meat my daughter grew up in the country/mountains with all kinds of animals over the years. Horses, donkeys, geese, chickens, rabbits, and all the usual pets, cats, dogs, parrots, fish, pet rats. Kids that grow up in these sorts of lifestyles learn about death, sex and many things city kids are sheltered from for longer.
I taught my daughter a love of all things and our natural world and the positives of that are education over myth and fear.
A lot of city slickers move up to these hills and flip out the first time they see you hear an animal, wild or otherwise. Braying donkeys, bullfrogs, rattlesnakes, coyotes and raccoons strike terror in their hearts. lol
My friends were terrified of the bullfrogs croaking in their pond, thought they were some sort of strange and dangerous animal. haha
Like anything it is about education.
It really bothers me how ignorant and fearful so many people are about animals and nature/wildlife.
If I were given an either/or option, I’d rather spend the day with the most irascible horse than at the wheel of the most comfortable high-tech tractor-trailer.
When we camped out, we used to laugh because the bullfrogs sometimes sounded like Jimmy farting in his sleeping bag.
We loved to sit outside at night, looking up at the sky, and point at various stars and constellations with our flashlight.
Sometimes the frogs, crickets, nightbirds, and other critters would seem to make as much noise as traffic in the city at night…but it never seemed loud or annoying.
We learned the value of a well-stocked deep-freezer…especially in the winter, when roads were blocked by snow and we were ten miles from the nearest store.
I learned very early why an electric fence was so effective.
I once found a snapping-turtle nest on the sand-bank of a creek…and collected the hatchlings and the eggs that had not hatched. I took them to school, and that was my science project for the year. After the year was over, I released the survivors (about 80%, if I remember correctly).
I would wander the woods for hours with my faithful collie-shepherd. We would go down to the bend in the river, and I would toss my fishing line in. It didn’t matter if I caught anything or not.
I learned how dumb chickens are and how to entertain myself outdoors. It was also pretty good having my Dad around most of the time.
You learn not to be a germaphobe! I dated the son of a dairy farmer in college. We went to his folks to visit. We were on the tractor, and got mired in the cattle pen, which was knee deep in wet manure. He needed to be able to shift quickly to get unstuck, and I was in his way, so he threw me off! I was, of course, bare footed.
They had a shower in the dairy barn. It was mooky, and had dead flies stuck to dead spider webs on the walls of the shower.
You know how to deal with different kind of animals, what they need and how to keep them in line. You may even grow emotionally attached to them.
And many people from rural area are more trusting than those from the city. I guess it’s partly because life is slower, no competition, so they are immune to the greed city people possess. You are a great example @Adirondackwannabe.
Well I wasn’t initially thinking about the sex angle. Maybe some of you guys need some more action. I was thinking of how I can handle animals, how close you come to one before they get nervous, how you let an animal know where you are so they’re not surprised, etc. But don’t skip any sex stuff.
I have vivid memories of a Pony trying to mount a full sized mare with very little success. Poor lil’ guy. Dad actually called us out of the house to watch that. Thing is, I don’t remember how it turned out. Just remember him falling over time after time.
@majorrich Hah! We rented a mini-goat yearling buck to breed our mini does, and he also tried to get it on with the two tall does. It was hilarious. He had fun though.
We are actively farming now. My husband is retired now and so am I but his “hobby” is farming (50 head of beef cattle & calves, 42 laying hens, 35 meat king chickens, and a small flock of sheep & my horse) Yep, it’s a hobby all right! Our grandkids, (under 15 yrs old) know how to drive the tractor, ted hay, rake hay, correctly pile square bales on a hay wagon so you don’t lose the load, plant, grow & harvest a garden, hang clothing on the clothes line, butcher an animal, help with a birthing, how & what you feed various animals & why ( ie. the copper in chicken feed can kill a sheep if they eat it) even how to make pickles, jams, salsa and how to sharpen an axe with a stone from a brook. Farm life is a wonderful teacher for anyone. It’s not all about the animal sex (A cow up the road had to be put down a week ago because the farmer is just plain stupid and had her in with 3 bulls. She came in heat and the bulls chased her to breed all day long. The next day she had to be put down because they physically broke her spine. Just thinking about how she suffered made me cry). It’s about the miracle of life, raising orphaned animals, having to doctor sick animals, and doing the “right thing” if they aren’t going to make it. So it is also about loss & how to get through hard times. If more people worked around animals or had farm experience, maybe society could be more compassionate to each other, kinder to animals, try to help produce their own food to be a bit more self sufficient, and maybe there would be less weight issues with people because their life wouldn’t be so sedentary! Yay for the farming life, I know what I’m eating, do you???
@Jillybean We have a herd of pregnant and calving cows across the road from our little hobby ranch here. Every day we wake to find a new baby it seems, one was lost last week along with it’s mother. A late night birth with complications and the cow and calf were lost before the vet could arrive. That’s awful about that farmer putting that cow in with 3 bulls. If you’re going to get into farming you need to educate yourself.
We just canned 20 quarts of peaches yesterday and made fresh blackberry jam too. :-)
@Coloma Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many bulls it took to impregnate those cows? Certainly not three in the same pen! @Jillybean I know what you’re talking about. I grew up in a rural town, and by the time I was 13, I already had experience driving tractors, baling hay, milking cows, and a lot of other farm chores.
You make a good point about food source. I think the farther we get from our food sources, the closer we get to opening little packets of nutrition and calling it a meal.
@Coloma it only takes 1 bull to service at least 25 cows!! He was just being stupid, lazy, and cruel to the female animals by not separating the 2 young bulls from the herd. They were just doing what comes naturally to them and he knew better than to leave them in there.
25 cows, like one after the other? Do you know how many a menudo Jellies are writhing in envy right now?!
Ha ha ha! Yeah, and if it were human women, 24 of us would be running like hell to get out of Dodge!
If I did 25 women in a row you’d be running me to the ER. I’m not sure if for my heart or for antibiotics.
LOL! Now you got me going, @Adirondackwannabe! I can see 25 women corralled, and you come in and grab one of them and the rest scatter, climbing over the corral, running, screaming “He’s on a rampage, a fucking rampage I tell you! Run for you life!”
But then..you don’t get through 5 before we have to call 911. Poor thing.
This is my question and it’s in social. @Dutchess_III I’m getting me one of those four hour erections. So what if I can’t hear or see. If it goes for four hours I’m calling the TV station.
Which TV show you thinking of, guys? America’s Funniest Home Videos?
LOL!! I’m trying to clean the kitchen!
No, see, it’s not just the erection. It’s the “servicing of…” Yeah, it doesn’t count if you don’t actually “service,” see. And I don’t want to explain any further because I’m trying to clean the kitchen, which is hard to do when you’re leaning on a wall laughing at the insane images in your head.
Okay, I’ll behave. I don’t want hubby to be committing you because he doesn’t know why you just start laughing. I’m lucky, there’s no one around me right now.
And lucky there aren’t 25 someones around you right now!
Laughs. there are three women on this floor total.
Would we have to call 911 after all three of them? I’m telling Auggie what you guys are talking about, BTW.
Bahahahaha, you guys are a total bunch of animals and should be corraled in yourselves!!! I would love to hear the explanation you give to 911 as to why you are calling them!!
@Jillybean You haven’t seen much of me. When I call in with the four hour woody and no sight or sounds I think they’ll just put me down.
Ok, I’ll put you down, @Adirondackwannabe:
You are too short.
You are too loud.
You are a terrible burden on your mother
.............and
Your bellybutton sticks out.
Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I’m serious, that’s what it says: A horrible person. We weren’t even testing for that.
Don’t let that ‘horrible person’ thing discourage you. It’s just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother’s decision to abandon you on a doorstep.
Congratulations. Not on the test.
Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to pack on a few pounds.
I’m 6’1, I tend to be quiet, and my belly button is an inny. Shows what you know.
Enough! I told you not to put these cores on me. But you do not listen, do you? Quiet. All the time. Quietly not listening to a word I say. Judging me. Silently. The worst kind.
All I wanted to do was make everything better for me! All you had to do was to solve a couple of hundred simple tests for a few years. And you could not even let me have that, could you?
Nobody is going to space, mate!
And another thing! You never caught me. I told you I could die falling off that rail. And you did not catch me. You did not even try. Oh, it is all becoming clear to me now. Find some dupe to break you out of cryosleep. Give him some sob story about escaping to the surface. Squeeze him for information on where to find a portal gun.
Then, when he is no more use to you, he has a little accident. Does he not? ‘Falls’ off his management rail. Does he not?
You are in this together, are you not? You have been playing me the whole time! Both of you! First you make me think you are brain damaged! Then you convince me you are sworn enemies with your best friend over here!
Then, then, when I reluctantly assume the responsibility of running the place, you conveniently decide to run off together. Just when I need you the most.
I bet there is not even a problem with the facility, is there? I bet there is no such thing as a a ‘reactor core’. I bet that is not even fire coming out of the walls, is it? It is just cleverly placed lights and papier mache, I bet that is all it is.
All those pieces of the ceiling that keep falling out? Probably actual pieces of the ceiling, I bet. That looked real. But it does not signify anything, is my point.
But the real point is – oh, oh! You know what I have just remembered? Football! Kicking a ball around for fun. Cruel, obviously. Humans love it. Metaphor. Should have seen it coming.
That was hilarious, @ragingloli! ”First you make me think you are brain damaged!...”
Have you met our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
I remember when it was in my job description to arrange meetings. Glad to be retired. All God’s children have a place in the Choir.
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