And on the Eighth Day

Well, lately, all i can think about is farming. I am guessing, it is probably because in the summers, all of my days are filled, and I mean JAM PACKED with farming. From irrigating hay, to cutting wheat this time of year, to sitting in the tractor for hours, I can truly say that I LOVE what I do.
For my final project in my online English class this summer, I got to choose what i wanted to do. So can you guess what i decided to do?? You bet, I decided to do an ethnographic research paper on farmers. This meant, I had to take an extreme in depth look at the life of a farmer and what kind of role he plays in society. I was not only thrilled, i was literally jittery inside. I dont think I had ever really been that excited to interview, research, and write a 6 page paper on farmers. I guess you can say I was interested in what i was going to write about.
To start off, i had to decide how i was going to go about doing this. In an ethnography, you have to be an outsider looking in to a society/group of people. I was one of those people, so it was a little harder than expected. I had to look at the quirks we had, our lifestyle, what our day to day lives were like, and most of all, what we were doing to contribute to our community. I had some work ahead of me for sure.
I wanted to tackle the big thing firs, which was the interview. Luckily, being a 5th generation farmer, I knew exactly who i wanted to interview. I was going to interview the man that when you talked to, had 30 stories to tell you that day, which all were different from the day before, had all day to tell you those stories, and had lived his 80 years of life as a full time farmer and nothing else. I was going to interview... my grandfather, the greatest man in the world to me.
When interviewing him, i got an even deeper look into the life of a farmer. Growing up, i hadn't really thought about how i lived, as being a culture. But when you step back and take a look, it truly is. What other profession do you know, that your not only a business owner, your a weather man, an economist, an accountant, a rancher, a mechanic, and about 10 other jobs? I dont think i could name one. Being a farmer is probably the most unique lifestyle and job out there. You start your day off before dawn, probably doing chores like feeding the animals, getting stuff ready for your days work, and so on. Then you work on who knows what of your thousand jobs that need to be done that week., and work past dark, just to start over the next day and do the same thing. It truly is remarkable.
We live humble, busy lives. We depend on mother nature, and skill to make it in life. There is no such thing as a "day off" in my book. There will always be something to do, some animal to doctor, some oddball fix it project.
Its this lifestyle that most people would never consider. Who would want to work, work, and work some more, and barely scrape by for years? A farmer would. It truly is, what we say, "in the blood." 97% of farms in the US are family farms. And i would bet, that the majority of them are more than one generations old.
I never thought i would want the farming lifestyle. I wanted to go be a businessman, make millions, live in a big house, travel the world, and live the way you see on television. I wanted to be the next bill gates, the next mark zuckerburg, the next oprah. Then, when i was in my last year of highschool, it all finally hit me. I would never have been close to where i was in this life, if it werent for growing up on the farm. Learning responsibility, good record keeping, and being depended on to do things, and do them right. My ag classes gave me the deeper knowledge of agriculture. I was in FFA and traveled and competed in competition after competition, competed in event after event, went to hundreds of activities, made hundreds of friends, and most of all, fell deeply in love with agriculture. My first year in highschool, i competed in the FFA Creed speaking contest, and if you dont know what the FFA creed is, then you better learn it. https://www.ffa.org/about/whoweare/Pages/TheFFACreed.aspx

"I believe in the future of agriculture, with a faith born not of words but of deeds - achievements won by the present and past generations of agriculturists; in the promise of better days through better ways, even as the better things we now enjoy have come to us from the struggles of former years.

I believe that to live and work on a good farm, or to be engaged in other agricultural pursuits, is pleasant as well as challenging; for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny.

I believe in leadership from ourselves and respect from others. I believe in my own ability to work efficiently and think clearly, with such knowledge and skill as I can secure, and in the ability of progressive agriculturists to serve our own and the public interest in producing and marketing the product of our toil.

I believe in less dependence on begging and more power in bargaining; in the life abundant and enough honest wealth to help make it so--for others as well as myself; in less need for charity and more of it when needed; in being happy myself and playing square with those whose happiness depends upon me.

I believe that American agriculture can and will hold true to the best traditions of our national life and that I can exert an influence in my home and community which will stand solid for my part in that inspiring task. "

It was this creed, that i was striving to live by. I made it all the way to the state competition. By that time, it was engraved in my brain forever. To this day, i can say it like i was still a 15 yr old freshman.

With the FFA, my ag classes, the farm, and especially my family, i knew that this lifestyle, was the lifestyle that suited me best. It is what my dad did, my grandpa, his father, and his father did. It truly is in my blood, and i can feel it. While off at school, i get homesick when i drive by the student farm, or go to a class and the ffa emblem is on the wall. It makes me realize how much of an impact the past few years have really meant to me and made me who i am.

And so, in my paper, i conveyed my feelings and emotions, my thoughts, my grandpas experience and thoughts, as well as many articles, that no longer was a report, but a document of what my life was, and will probably be like.

When i finish school, become a teacher, and take over the family farm, i will be living my "American Dream." I may not have millions of dollars, a huge house, or a Lamborghini in my garage, but i will know that i love what i do, and that i know that i am doing what i was meant to do.

I look at what i just wrote and think, wow, look what being a farmer has done. Now i know why it really is in the blood. Its not just a job, its a way of life, and a way of life that at that, is probably the most rewarding thing in the world. You raise your kids right, teach them to be responsible and work hard, and to go for what they love.

Like the poem says on my sidebar, Im just a farmer, plain and simple. And unlike Martin Luther King Jr, I don't just have a dream, I am living my dream.

It is stories like these that give us young farmers hope. In todays world, it is getting harder and harder to get into the farming business. With land prices soaring, equipment soaring also, and everything else at a high, it is almost impossible to get into the business without a little help. But there are programs out there to help. The USDA and FSA(Farm Service Agency) have programs like the Beginning Farmer Loan programs, where if a young farmer gets denied by 2 lending institutions, and meets the requirements, he can get a bunch of different government loans through the USDA at very low interest rates. I am hoping to get one of those in the future, and hopefully get a start on my own farm.