Northern Farmer

I’ve been thinking about homesteading as far as it’s importance to a successful family farm. I look back and can go through my mind on who made it farming in my area from my age group and the importance of homesteading and the lifestyle that goes with it. There were a good share of us young men that wanted to continue farming back in the 70s. Now in 2005 taking a look at the survivors a very revealing fact comes out. Most of us survivors were into the homesteading lifestyle one way or another. It doesn’t matter what kind of farming was being done, it comes out the same.The homesteading farmers, stayed away from town as much as possible, no frill lifestyles, didn’t pursue the latest modern lifestyle fads. Most had gardens, chickens and the like. Pickup trucks worth a few hunderd dollars, if that. They didn’t try to compete with the rest of their families living in urban settings, many times they would be mocked and joked about at holidays when the families got together as backward,” get a life”, “what are you doing wasting your life on that old farm for?” The list can go on and on as the modern society would try to get them to come over to there side, but these guys could shed them comments like a duck sheds water. They were getting out of debt ahead of schedual, eating good food, and loving their lives on the farm. And many, many of them have a strong faith in God.
I have to laugh thinking about what modern society would say if they would see this bunch of simple farmers when we get together, wether it’s at the feed mill, meeting on a gravel road, or in a local tavern. It’s a fashion statement if you’ve ever seen one. Ripped up jeans, shirts with holes and rips in them, blowed out boots. And a conversation loaded with laughter, sometimes my eyes are full of tears I’m laughing so hard at the stories passing back and forth.It reminds me of an old Charlie Russel, the Montana artist, drawing labeled, “These Are My Kind Of Folks”. The drawing shows what society at that time considered the bottom, but really were the best there were. The hard working simple folks you could trust.
On the other side of the coin were the ones that tried to follow the modern way, wanting to keep up with the world. Very few are left, and the ones that remain for the most part have not much good to say about farming, and I think it would be hard to imagine their present debt load.
The past thirty years has been an interesting time observing and thinking about the two paths a person can follow in agriculture.I’ve always been a homesteader and getting deeper and deeper into it. Family farming and homesteading cannot be separated.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.