There are so many misconceptions about living on a farm, some I may have had once too if I am honest, others make me giggle!
As I have said many times before, I had no real clue about this new life, new world I had all of a sudden found myself married into. I had grown up in a town most people would call ‘regional’ and I definitely saw my fair share of cattle and sheep drench ads on the tele each night. Only God knew, lets face it, that one day I would actually understand what those ads were banging on about. I even now have regular conversations with my farmer about the so-called benefits of various brands!
Over time, I have come to realise that there are a few ideas floating “out there” about farm life and the people who choose to do this for a living and/or lifestyle.
Lets chat about a few of them shall we???
Telephones:
When we very first moved, a close friend asked us how they would now communicate with us? Ummmm – it’s called a telephone mate!
He seemed to believe that that because we were now on a larger scale farm, further away from where they all lived that we would have no access to telecommunications!
Now, I admit that for a few years, mobile phone service was less than amazing. We had to stand outside the house, on top of the septic tank, balancing on one leg to get any kind of decent service, but we always had a landline inside the house!
Of course, I can’t speak about the lives of those on what I would call remote properties but we are on farmland that sits beautifully close to some pretty decent residential areas – our closest is 70kms away, but that’s close isn’t it???
Technology:
Farmers are terrible with technology….
Mmmmm, I think this could be more of a generational thing than a ‘what you do for a living’ thing. I have worked with some pretty incredible farm wives, and we were all quite receptive and adaptable to technology. We have been doing office work remotely for a lot longer than a lot of people who had to adopt it quickly because of the pandemic situation. And don’t get me started on the working from home, remote learning stuff – a lot of that is second nature to us. We have had to shift with the sands every time a bank branch closed close by and we lost access to bank managers and the like.
Our men (and a lot of women) adapt so quicky to technology in their machines its quite amazing. My farmer has a GPS and auto-steer situation going on that I, with all my office skills, happily leave up to him. These complicated pieces of technology require calibrations, setting up with satellites etc. it blows me away.
We have just invested in a piece of technology for our animal handling that will help us record data for our sheep business. It will measure growth rates, basically weights over time, helping us figure out how to produce the best product in the quickest time in the most profitable way. Now, if only this farmers wife can get that data from the machine to her laptop! Mmmmm – maybe I do have some issues with technology! Hahahaha
You have to talk slow around a farmer:
You might think I am joking here, but this actually happened to my farmer. A very ignorant (sorry if that is harsh) woman spent the whole time at a party we attended speaking really slowly to him. At the time, we thought perhaps there was something wrong with her! We found out later that she thought we, (Phil in particular) needed to be spoken to slower so he could keep up with conversation of people in ‘the city’.
What the actual………!!!???
Please take my advice and never ever do this – to anyone!
My man can hold his tongue that’s for sure, and he may not be the biggest conversationalist in the world, but that’s most likely because he is considering his words. Let me tell you, when he speaks, its wise to listen.
If you meet him and you are blessed to have a D&M with him, or even better, a real laugh, he trusts you and is happy to chat. If you approach him and talk like Forrest Gump because you think he can’t understand things, he will definitely pull out the advice from Thumpers mum….”if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Get to know a person from the land and you will be wise to perhaps be the one to quiet yourself and lean in for a bit of wisdom and life lessons.
School life:
Recently we had some people ask us how we schooled our kids.
Obviously people have heard of School of the Air, but don’t perhaps realise that not all farm families need to use this. Again, its an amazing service for those in more remote communities. Even though I explained to these people that we actually are located only 20 minutes from a small community, they still couldn’t wrap their heads around how our kids went to school! Well….they went on the bus, the same as your kids most likely! Our kids went to what is called a ‘Central’ school. It catered for kids kindergarten to Year 12. The senior years of school were a mixture of face to face learning and at the time what was called VC lessons – video conference.
The kids in a lot of these schools have been learning remotely way before Covid and Zoom meetings were even a thought! Kind of brings me back to the points I made in the technology section above! More often than not, with just them alone in a room and their teacher on a screen in another distant location – and you know what? Most of them thrived!
Even though we are on a larger farm here than in our previous life, I was blessed to have the school bus pick up and drop off right at the house gate. Our previous farm would see me ‘fanging’ it up the dirt farm road, opening gates sometimes in the snow and howling winds as I would watch the dang school bus pull out from the stop! I am sure he could see me coming and had some sort of sick pleasure watching me fail the timeframe more often than not!
Farm = farm:
I reckon a lot of people might think that because we live on a farm, we clearly know about all aspects of farming. Nope. We are a mixed farm, so farm grain (wheat, barley, oats), cattle and sheep. So, I suppose we have a handle on a lot of farming practises. But we don’t farm cotton for example. So, if you want to know about that, maybe ask a cotton farmer.
Want to know about fat lambs, meat…we are your people.
Dairy…yep, you’ve figured it out…..ask a dairy farmer.
Even different locations may mean we understand things differently. What our soil can achieve is different to those who farm black soil for example.
My farmer does however love his research and would prefer to watch farming/agriculture videos on YouTube than probably almost anything else. Is anyone else’s partner like this?
Farmers love “The Man From Snowy River”:
Ok. Well this could definitely be correct! Hahaha
Yep – most loved movie here in this home. He can recite it almost from start to finish!
Add to that any western from any era at any time of any day!
Thank the good Lord up in heaven for that thing called technology again – I do not have a problem curling up with my earphones these days and something on the good old Netflix!
I have had many many night though when I have woken up to the sound of sheep bleating in my bedroom as he has woken up, cant sleep for one reason or another and there’s a YouTube farm clip cast to the TV at the end of the bed!
Lucky I don’t mind counting sheep!!!!!
So there you have it. A very quick glance at a few misconceptions that have come our way over the years. I’d love to know some that if you are a farmer you have faced, or perhaps as a person that doesn’t live on the land, whats something you once thought was true of farmers and is no longer your belief?
Comment below!
Xxxx
Be blessed everyone
Toni
FWFL
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