The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
8/11/2010 column
County fair week has come and gone, leaving behind a lifetime of memories. Water fights in the wash racks on hot steamy days. Card games on the show box to pass the time away. Food runs to the lunchstand for pie and ice cream. Cheesy fries and corn dogs all make us scream. Laughter and calliope music fill the air. These are the things that make a great county fair. The activities are fun but the friends make it special!
With three licensed teenage drivers in the family now (Katie passed her test on Thursday during the fair), Mark and I are no longer needed as chauffeurs. With this sense of freedom, the kids have taken on more responsibilities at the fair leaving us behind to handle the daily summer chores on the farm. I think this is an initiation rite to prepare us for the time when all of the kids will be off to colleges or careers. Luckily we have had extra help on the farm these past few weeks.
Janine came to stay with us in June. She is from a Holstein dairy farm in northwestern Germany. She lives on a family farm with her parents, younger sister and grandmother. They milk about 60 head in a parlor and grow their own feed. They also grow potatoes and pumpkins for sale. They are in the middle of a very dry period, so when word came out about the Russian wheat crop loss due to draught, it didn’t surprise us very much.
She will be with us till mid-September as part of an internship before she heads off to agriculture school. Janine has to write reports about her experiences, so she is asking Mark a ton questions. It has been fun listening to them trying to convert acres/hectares, pounds/kilos, and gallons/liters. I’m beginning to wish I had paid more attention to metrics when I was in school. She is documenting our third hay cutting and straw harvest. She reports that we put up 2,000 bales of hay and straw in a 24 hour period during the county fair.
Providing much of the muscle are our two boys from France. Kevin and Josh returned this summer after having so much fun last year. They missed baling last season and made up for it this year! It is amazing how much the boys have grown. They are heads above our boys. Despite all of the hot weather, hard work and mosquito bites, they are already talking about coming back again next year.
It has been fun having 7 teenagers in the house from ages 14 to 19. A neighbor stopped by to pick up some sweet corn and was teasing that I didn’t need to work outside any more with all of the help running around. I laughed and said that I wish I could get outside, but with laundry and cooking to feed this crew I’m stuck in the house.
Now that we have survived county fair week, it is on to the next challenge…back to school shopping! Over the years, I have purchased enough extra supplies to open my own store. The kids know to go to the school closet and pull out the supplies they need for the coming year. I figure you can never have enough notebooks, pens and pencils on hand, however I am starting to realize that these things will become obsolete with all of the technology our children will use in their lifetime. I know that I am low tech, but I don’t have to rely upon batteries and programs to get the job done. I just have to organize better so I don’t lose it.
I’ve had to take a couple of the kids to do some “back-to-school” shopping. This is an interesting adventure. I remember shopping for school clothes once a year. I would always try to pick up a pair of dark, blue jeans and a couple of shirts. It was a treat to have new clothes to wear. The jeans that I’ve found in the stores today I wouldn’t even wear for farm jeans, let alone pay $50. They are so worn out, stained and ripped. Katie figured that she could buy a pair of good dark jeans for $15. She would break them in by wearing holes in the knees, spilling teat dip down the front and then turn around to sell them as “fashion” for $50. I think I’m going to have to raid my repair pile of jeans and try to find some extra cash.
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As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark are starting a new adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.