Sweat, blood, and yes, tears

“I have no sentimental attachment to this farm,” so said my dad as he prepared to move into town.

I am still incredulous. How could that be? After 48 years of ownership and residence? A brand new house, built with my parents sweat equity, and later my mom’s blood in that house, when she killed herself.

Am I more attached because I spent my formative years, from age 5 until marriage, on the place? Am I wanting to hang on to my mom? Dad could not as he had to move forward. He married someone else a year after her death.

“Remember when we raised sheep?” I asked him. “I can still sense the smell of KRS, that foul-smelling magnicide that we doctored them with It’s an odor I will never forget.”

Those sheep. So many had to be assisted at birthing. Common for twins to appear, even triplets. Ewes had no sense. Someone had to be there at the moment and pen the new momma and her offspring into a small pen we called a “jug.” I never knew why — maybe it was like a jail and that was a timely slang term for jail.

In another era of the lamb’s life, we fed them corn and fattened them for slaughter. The best price was shortly before Passover; the Jews wanted them and we sold and shipped the fats to Omaha on a train from Oral, S.D. — a direct market to the kosher killing plants. Feeding a raucous bunch of Pavlovian-trained lambs — they heard the buckets rattle and they knew mealtime was nigh — was a problem for me. A 5-pound bucket of shelled corn weighs right at 30 pounds. I had a bucket in each hand and I weighed less than 90. The lambs were half as tall as I, and what one could call enthusiastic. They butted me and sometimes knocked me down, sending the buckets askew, corn sprawling and lambs gorging. Those wrecks always made me mad and sometimes left me with cuts and scratches from hooves. The only thing truly hurt was my pride. I couldn’t help it I wasn’t big enough to control the situation.

How could dad not be sentimental? This place earned him his dreams.

Before we bought the place, we rented a house, and a few farm fields on which to raise the crops to sustain the family and feed the cows we had acquired. The feeding was done by loading 40 small, square hay bales on the pickup — and once we were at the cow pasture dad would ride in the back of the pickup, cut the strings on the bales, and pitch the hay onto the ground for the cows. I “drove” the pickup for him. (I was 5.) Actually, I just kept it going in a more or less straight line so it wouldn’t circle around. Dad put it in the lowest gear so it barely crawled along, then jumped out and into the back of the pickup. I had a job!

And that is the how farm and ranch kids develop work ethic.

Sanders is a national award-winning self-syndicated columnist and author. She can be reached through peggy@peggysanders.com.