Reflections and Memoir of Growing Up on a Hobby Farm
By Suzie Peterson
I didn’t know it at the time, but when I was growing up on a hobby farm, I was getting quite the well-rounded education about life, surviving, and ultimately what it means to be a wholesome, good person.
There’s a thread of farming in my family history, which led to me growing up on a hobby farm in a rural town seventy-five miles north of New York City. My dad was raised on a farm where he was expected to help out with all the chores. During his childhood and teenage years, he raised steers with the local 4-H club for show and competition at the local county fair. As a young adult, one of his first jobs was that of Clove Creek Farm Manager for FDR Jr., on the Roosevelt property in Poughquag, New York. We lived on that property until I was 5 years old. My dad decided that he wanted to start his own business, so we moved to a big ol’ farmhouse on the other end of town, which was owned by my dad’s new business partner.
Prior to our family moving on to the property, and eventually purchasing it, it had been a large working dairy farm. When we moved in, the fields surrounding the farm house were rented out to local farmers to grow corn for their livestock, and as a place for their animals to graze during the summer. It was always an exciting day in mid-spring when the Black Angus farmer dropped off his trailer load of 20 –30 cattle. It was so peaceful during the summer to watch them lumber about the fields, huddle together at the tree line, chew their cud, and swish their tails.
It took time for dad and his partner to grow their construction company business, which meant that money was not easy for our family at that time. This is when the hobby farm was integrated into our already hard working and busy lives of work and school. My parents knew that a way to save money, and stay healthy, was to grow a big garden for harvesting, freezing, and canning produce, and to raise our own meat. My dad’s farming experiences kicked in. They rototilled a huge garden. The family planted, watered, weeded and picked from the garden all spring and summer. Dad built a root cellar into the side of one of the hills where the potatoes, carrots and the other root vegetables were stored during the winter. We canned tomatoes, froze beans, peas, and corn, made pickles, and we had fresh tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers all during the growing season.
The pigs we raised would eat just about anything, but they especially liked it when we brought them the leftover produce from the local grocery store. They were really happy, snorting, critters when they saw our station wagon back up to their pigpen. They knew there were bins of vegetables in their immediate future. After devouring all that they could, they would retreat to their happy place – in the mud, in the middle of the stream that ran through their pigpen. We raised and slaughtered our own chickens, which is where I learned that there really is such a thing as “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” We also raised our own Polled Hereford steers for 4-H, for competition in local fairs, and ultimately the freezer. My sister, brother and I were expected to help take care of the family hobby farm – the garden, the property, and especially our steers.
The real solid work ethic it takes for ten, eleven and twelve year-olds to raise a steer is unlike any other. Those 1,250 pound animals counted on us for their survival. There was no such thing as staying inside because of bad weather, or taking time off to enjoy the good weather. Although the animals did not require us to be with them full-time every day, our days did have to revolve around the times that the animals needed to be cared for, fed, and watered.
Before school every day, around 5:00 a.m., flashlight in hand, we headed out back to the barn to feed the animals. It was a daily challenge to keep their food safe from any number of varmints who enjoy freeloading in barns. The bales of hay and feed bags of oats and corn mixture that we carried for our animals were real darn heavy. We had to carry multiple five-gallon pails of water from the stream to the steer’s water bin, several times a day; no such thing as running water in that barn back then! These animals each had their own personality; they knew who they each belonged to, they knew our voices, and what we expected from them. They enjoyed when we washed, brushed and talked to them. Their ears perked up and wriggled happily. Daily stall cleaning was different depending upon the season. Mucking a stall in subfreezing temps brought mixed feelings – you were frozen while you’re doing the work, but the manure was solid, easier to handle, and the smell was not as potent as in the summer. The smell increased during the 70- 90 degree weather, so the faster you worked, the quicker the smelly job was done. We eventually became immune to the smell. It was always a good feeling to leave a clean stall for our steers, knowing that they would have a fresh bed of hay to rest on, until the cycle of cleaning up after them started again. They especially enjoyed eating fresh green hay. Anything fresh and green was like their “candy.” Their ears would perk up, they would get happy-frisky, their tails would wave, and they would chew and chew.
Humor is inevitable on a hobby farm. All you have to do is sit and watch the antics of any of the animals and their interactions with their people to put a smile on your face.
One morning, our big, drooling St. Bernard, Molly, hopped into the pig pen. She was bound and determined to let the pigs know who was boss. She stood and barked non-stop at Arnold and Mildred. Mom, in her robe and curlers in her hair, heard the commotion. She ran up to the pig pen with a broom in her hand, hopped in, and was doing what she could to swish and corral Molly and the pigs apart from each other. She was blindsided by one of the pigs when he ran between her legs. She went head over teakettle into the mud. Thank God she didn’t get hurt. It was unnerving for her then, but the thought of seeing her be flipped flat by a pig, in her curlers and robe, is now a funny story that is retold and laughed about at many family events.
And then there were Homer and Jethro. They were our two chubby white pet ducks who waddled their way up to the kitchen window at our dinner time on most evenings. They would have quite the stare-down and quacking conversation with dad until he gave them some chunks of bread through the window. They always made a disgusting mess near that part of the sidewalk, so we seldom walked barefoot in that area of the yard.
Every once in a while a steer or two would escape from the pen. The cause might have been as simple as someone forgetting to lock the gate, or as annoying as the steers having pushed through part of the fence. It took persistence, patience, coaxing, and manipulating skills to find the runaway steers, figure out how to get them calmed down, corral them back to their pen, and repair the route of escape. Not easy, and not fast. The scene of escapee steers, if they’re not yours to catch, can be quite entertaining. They get so excited that their tails stand straight up. On Polled Herefords that means the little white tip at the end of their tail is playfully waving high up in the air; they kick their hind legs up in a rascally kind of way, and then they gallop. Straight for the nearest cornfield – their candy store.
When you raise a steer in 4-H, you have to train him so that he cooperates for you for when you exercise him and when you bring him to shows. The training begins with a lesson on how to make your own harness or halter to put on the steer. That’s followed by a lesson about the persistence it takes to try to get an active, nervous, young animal of about 300–400 pounds, calmed down enough to trust you to lead him. It takes a while, maybe a week or so, but with persistence, physical strength, and consistency, a steer can be trained to let you lead him down the road, into the hollow, for a nice long walk. These walks became their daily exercise to tone their muscles and fat to get them market ready for when it’s time to take them to the show, and eventual auction. The road I walked my steer on also happened to be the road where one of the best looking guys in the high school lived. So I took extra care to be sure my hair was done just so, and that I had on very neat clean clothes when I walked my steers…just in case he or his family (city folks) would pass by. And when they did, they’d stop and chat for a few minutes, intrigued by the sight of seeing a 1,250 pound Polled Hereford being taken for a walk down the road by a teenage girl. That just made my day when I got to talk with them. Thanks, steers!
On the business side of our hobby farm, we had to keep track of the original cost of the calves, the cost of their food, shop for the highest quality and best priced feed, track the proportions of their different types of food depending on where they were at in their growth cycle, track how much they ate, and their weight gains. We had know when they needed a veterinarian to visit, and we had to know how to speak with the veterinarian, We had to know what the going market prices were at auctions for our types of animals, and then we had to decide what cost per pound would be an acceptable bid when we sold them at the auction. We had to understand the amount of the animal that would be considered waste and how much actual meat it would yield. We compared our data and traded tips with other local hobby farmers. One year, the University of Connecticut purchased my steer to bring back to their farming students as an example of a really well grown animal!
There were even lessons about charity on a hobby farm – my dad’s company would often purchase either a steer, a pig, or lamb at the county fair livestock auction and donate it to the local children’s home for their freezer.
When you’re a kid raising a steer on the family hobby farm, if you want time off to go to your friend’s house to play, or for a sleepover, you have to drive some kind of a worthwhile bargain with your sibling to take care of your steer while you’re away. That bargain, among other promises, always included a demand that the favor be returned.
Dealing with all of the weather elements in the northeast was not up for negotiation on the hobby farm. In the winter, we often trudged through many inches, or feet, of fresh fallen, unplowed snow to get to the barn. Our hands would freeze even when we had on our sturdy work gloves, and our cheeks would be real rosy. We used a pick to break through the layer of ice on the stream in order to gather pails of water for the animals. We learned early on in life that the fresh cold air is healthy, that you don’t melt in the rain, and that fresh fallen raindrops feel good dripping on your face. In the hot weather, we could often be found in the barn, near our steers, in front of the fan which would not only cool both of us down, but also keep the flies away from them. As kids, each time we stepped into the barn, regardless of the weather, we were unconsciously reminded of its complete peacefulness. The animals were generally calm, quiet, and happy to see us. It was in the barn that we would forget about any uncomfortable weather and hard work. The harmonious feeling took over, and got us through it all.
When you’re a kid growing up on a hobby farm, there is very little room to tolerate such things as disrespect, drama, laziness, procrastination, carelessness, or impatience. You learn from your mistakes immediately, and move on. The seasons and the life cycles of the plants and animals are what you work with, and plan for. You learn responsibility, accountability, integrity, and honesty. The family has to work closely together.
Of course, like any family, some spats do occur…because we’re all different. You learn to get over the spats quickly, regardless of whether you are the winner, loser, or you compromise. You learn to just move on. It’s not all about “you.” The animals, plants and your family are counting on you. Being kind to all of them, thinking through situations on their behalf, comparing and contrasting different instances, understanding causes, effects and results, learning to be flexible, to work independently, with a partner, or as a group are all part of the normal day for a family on a hobby farm. By nature, for it to all work, it has to be that way. You naturally learn that communication skills, spoken, unspoken, or written are invaluable for both your family and the animals. You learn to understand the value of wide open spaces, to appreciate and ‘read’ the sky, the wind, and the trees. You truly appreciate the fresh, homegrown taste of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hobby farmers work hard and smart. They work beyond the point of being tired because they work until the job is done. It isn’t easy, but the best rewards and appreciation come from the things we have to work hard at in order to succeed.
Finally, when the job is done, kids on a hobby farm know when to hop on the sled and slip down a snow-covered hill. They know when the time is right to take a bike ride down the tree covered road, or play in the creek, to swing or rest under a big ol’ maple shade tree, or to just lay in the field of deep green grass and daydream under the fluffy white clouds and crisp blue sky.
Copyright @ 2020 Suzann Peterson. All rights reserved.
