Growing up on the farm

Did you all have jobs you actually hated? Mine was cleaning out the stinking old chicken house. It always happened in July when the humidity was close to 90% and milking those dam cows by hand. Dad cleaned out the fat cattle lot once a year. The milking barn got cleaned out at the same time. The crap would get so deep. The milk stool I used was a 2x4 nailed to a 4x4 leg. In the spring the leg would sink so deep I would be almost sitting in the crap. One year I nailed a couple of 2x4 extensions on the bottom. Looked silly but worked. When I left home I vowed that I would never milk anything again. Old gal can't understand why. She likes milking.

Large pole barn put up around 74/75, one side built out to run 25-30 heifers and by March they were on their knees to eat hay as the manure was so deep. Had to pitch out near the sliding doors so they could be opened to let em' out after fences fixed, plus one end opened to start filling the spreader after crops in and before haying, all by hand and you got 2.00/load from the ol' man, 50-60 loads every year and the 5-tine manure fork was the only type that worked to fill the 140 and later 180 Knight spreader.

I never hated any of the jobs, except - well, it fell to me to do virtually EVERYTHING for my sisters' horses in addition to everything else I did. The girls always had at least 4. And it was always just ME, ALONE. When my wife and I were dating before we were married, it was the first time she "met the parents." We got to my parents' house/farm (ours, now - the farm, but not the house); the farm rises up several hundred feet to a ridge, the top of which runs parallel with and about 2,000 feet east of the road, and against the skyline at sunset the horses were running south-to-north in single file along the very top of the ridge. My wife-to-be saw them, gasped and said, "OH, how BEAUTIFUL! What are their names?"
I said, very serious like, "Kibbles and bits and bits and bits."
That was back in 1982. The horses have been gone from the farm since around 1997. I always thought I hated horses, but in recent years discovered that I really like them, and am thinking of getting a few for us and the grandsons. Turns out I only hated that my father assigned the task to ME (I have 4 brothers and 5 sisters lol), and that my sisters lorded it over me that I was THEIR, "hired hand that never gets paid." I always said back, "That spells 'slave' anyway you look at it." I only got to ride two of them, once each, and - that is another story!!! Slave-boy, all work and NO play.
yeah... that sums it up!
I always thought I hated horses... but nope. Just that aspect of it all.

Didn't really like holding the bucket and bleeding out the pigs. But fresh blood was nessasary for grandma to make blood sausage. Cleaning the barn was probly the easiest job every day after school id get off the bus clean the stalls and wheel barrow the manure from the gutter out to the pile. Put in a little fresh straw and hay. And let the cows in. They got feed just before milking. We hand milked since we only had 2 cows and two calfs. Cows went out after morning milking and it was only a couple wheelbarrow loads each day.

I'd forgot about castrating. Your right it took 2 of us boys to sit on them and hold them down. Dad used a cable hog catcher to keep us from getting bit.

Cleaning out the bull's pen.  It was only about half reachable by tractor, and had dirt floor.  The part the tractor can't reach is by the manger, so lot's of hay pulled in and tangled in the manure. Only a big afternoon's work, but it was a terrible job.

Edited by Tbone95 - 03 Mar 2020 at 8:51am

Mucking out hog pens, old style, with a pitch fork hadda rate as the worst.  What wasn't slippery was dusty, and for days after, if ya coughed or sneezed, ya smelled hog sh!t!

How was the pay for all that work? When I got old enough I was the only boy left at home so it fell to me to do all those jobs plus take care of around 350 Acres, repairing fences, doing all the farming, which I enjoyed, the cows, hogs, 200 laying hens, no limit to how much I ate and they set a good table. Back to how much per hour I made. Dad paid me off in the fall. Can you guess how much? $5.00, honest to god. Oh, I did get get some nickels thru the summer, forgot about that. And I'm sure many of you had the same experiences and Dad and I squirrel hunted a lot, rabbits, coon, AND FISH. It really wasn't too bad, nothing like the kids are experiencing today. And it did make it easier to not date a certain big chested neighbor. Guess Joe would have rebelled, but like one of the guys said, when you got in at the end of the day you were too danged tired to go see one of those silly old girls. (Got over that!)        Leon

shameless dude wrote: only job I really hated was casterating the pigs. dad let them grow to about 70-90 lbs before he'd cut them. always got squirted in the eyes with their juices, and we had to hold them down on their backs and sit on them with one foot over their snout so they didn't bite us!

I'll bet the feeling was mutual! LOL

My wages on the farm was what ever I got from my pigs from 4-H project. Dad paid for the feed and I got to keep what ever I got from my pigs for my wages. We moved to town when I was 14 and when I turned 15 I worked summer for a farmer, his father -in-law would pick me up each morning and take me to work, I think I got $20.00 per week that was good money for the summer.

Our cows never went outside all winter so we never had this issue but when I went to work for our neighbor as a teenager, his cows did so once every year their rears and udders were clipped. I really hated those days that it took to do the whole 50+ cow herd.