Life on the Farm

(Editor’s Note: This is a special edition of Life on the Farm. Tales from the Station will continue next week.)

This Life on the Farm is going out by request to Shawna. It’s been awhile but some stories just have to be told. I’m going to depart from my usual rule of not mentioning names since all of the people I’m going to mention have gone off to the great green acres in the sky (except Shawna of course). About thirty years ago farming was a way of life around here just as much as working iron. If you travelled down Cook Road, or any of the side roads for that matter, it would have looked like one continuous farm.

It wasn’t unusual to see five or more tractors plowing a field in the spring or fall since everyone helped each other out. I remember one of the last big plowing “bees” in which I was plowing along with four other tractors. It was the way things were done. If one farmer needed help they merely mentioned it and the whole neighbourhood would show up. There was usually food involved at these functions, lots of food. Possibly, even a cold legal beverage could be found if you looked hard enough.

I was young at the time and I would always wonder to myself “Why am I at so-and-so’s farm plowing?” and “Why am I moving oats for so-and-so?” This was just youth and inexperience, something that can only be replaced with maturity and experience (when it happens you’ll be the first to know). These acts of generosity do come back around when you need it most. Back then you could consider it an investment in your neighborhood and you could guarantee it would be paid back when the need arose.

We experienced that when Dad hurt his back and we couldn’t get the wood in. We tried, but I think my Sister was thirteen and I was eleven at the time and my Brother is five years younger so we could only do so much. One Saturday the driveway filled up with cars, tractors, woodsplitters and guys with chainsaws. In one afternoon this work “Bee” cut and split close to twenty cords of wood for us. That was enough to get us through most of the winter. It was also a sight that brought tears to Dad’s eyes.

Well, one summer we got the terrible news that fellow farmer Abe Ransom wasn’t doing too well. In fact, he was in the hospital and the outlook wasn’t promising. His family was in dire straits wandering how they were going to get the crops in that summer. Abe’s family was relatively young at the time and the burden on those kids must have been huge. Abe’s wife was as strong as they come but the crops were still a daunting task.

While they mulled the situation over, the neighborhood was already acting on it. Abe’s family looked out the window one day and saw a convoy of tractors coming up Tarbell Road. What made them laugh was to see Dad in the lead with his Ford, representing the only blue tractor in a sea of green and red ones. Bill Cook and his family showed up with equipment and manpower. Abe Cook showed up with his tractor and just about every farm on Cook Road was represented with equipment or manpower when they headed out to the fields. Other farms throughout the community pitched in, as well.

Abe’s kids joined in the effort with their equipment and wagons showed up from all over. With that much equipment and manpower Abe’s crops were harvested and put away in short order. The wives in the neighbourhood did exactly what was needed and that was cook huge amounts of food. Everyone put in a good days work and were fed an incredible meal.

That was what the neighborhood did when someone needed help. That act of kindness which was not asked for, nor was it offered, it was just done and done without hesitation. It did so much to ease the burden on a family already suffering that it is still talked about over thirty years later. I wanted to share this story at the request of Shawna since it had such an impact on her family.

This is two families saying thanks to all their friends and neighbors who showed up at the right time and for all the right reasons. It wasn’t unusual back then for such occurrences, everyone pitched in and everyone who needed help was helped. It was more than survival, it was community. This was neighbors helping neighbors for the good of all. It’s something we don’t see as much of anymore and that is a shame.