07/30/2018
At Cushman Meadowlands we have a side variety of animals that we work with and raise year around. Not always is our livestock for sale yet it’s always an ongoing project. Of late there has been many questions good and bad about Farming, some not really knowing the whole picture, so we decided to take you down the trail of some of the Farmers the Meadowlands have known. We are inviting you to set back and enjoy our adventure during the Ten Weeks of Summer.
Farming in its earlier days....
Today we start the first week of the ten weeks of summer. The purpose of this series will be to describe not the plight but the flight of the farmers. You will see the determination each has to provide food for not only themselves but all of the consumers.
Each week a farmer will be featured giving us a glimpse of their life, the type of farming they do, some interesting, even funny situations they have encountered through the years. There will even be some strong opinions on todays issues.
We will have dairy, vegetable, mushroom, beef and sheep farmers. All ready to add some information that should answer questions that many people never ask. Farmers Market people will add some insight of the efforts it takes to come to the market and the kind of products most requested.
Lets get started with our first farmer, Bob Pedersen. It would be safe to say he has seen more than most, in his 92 years they have been spent mainly on the same piece of property. His life of farming started in Evart, a part of Osceola County. His Aunt and Uncle owned the farm. He would come as a child and spend all the time he could on this property, his love of farming so strong. He would spend hours with his uncle caring for the cows, chickens, hogs and sheep. The bond they shared for the country and animals would be instilled in him forever.
With his Uncle they always farmed in a method that was modern for the time, they hand milked 14 cows carrying the milk to the house where they separated the cream that would be sold on Saturday at the Store. The skim milk, the left over byproduct of the milk used for the family, pigs and calves. This was a vital growing process, calves and pigs were sold at market for income. Field work was done by two teams of horses, One hitch of two horses the other three. The crops they would plant and care for were oats, corn, hay, a small stand of barley and potatoes. This was all done on a farm that consisted of 170 acres, to include home, buildings , land for crops, pasture for cattle and some untillable swampland. The normal day would start with chores, milking cows and feeding livestock. Then came the real work, the teams would be fit with heavy leather harnesses ready to start, together they would like plow four acres in eight hours, there would be a mandatory one hour break at noon to eat hay and oats and have a good drink of water. The plowing would be done in the fall to ready the fields for summer. When summer came they would drag or prep twenty acres which would take approximately eight hours. When all was planted they would complete 15 acres of oats, 14 acres of corn, 5 acres of barley, 2 acres of potatoes, and not to be forgotten the 2 acres buckwheat for the chickens. This was all done by men walking behind horses, no matter the heat nor weather, unless the rains made the fields to wet to maneuver the equipment. These crops were needed to feed the animals and be sold for income.
After the crops were complete, the hay would be ready to be cut, raked and collected by a hayloader, this would be forked by hand then pitching on a wagon.
The wagons would be unloaded by pullies which would grip a bundle of hay and taken to waiting men with pitch forks in the haymows where it would be forked to the animals during the winter. 100 chickens were purchased each year, one half hens the other roosters. When the eggs started coming and the roosters were ready for slaughter everything would be traded on Saturday for food in Town.
Firewood was cut by hand, teams would haul the logs to barn when needed, the trip would be 1/2 mile one way and made by an unsupervised team. One thing about the team, they knew their way to the barn and and a good feed of oats came in handy.
The end of the day would find the two farmers under the tree with a well deserved tea and a hunk of my Aunts apple pie in hand enjoying the moment, as long as the day was my Uncle would say this hard work will make a man out of you! And it did just that.
As years past the milking machine arrived, the 14 cow herd would eventually become 70, no more separating milk, a truck would come to the farm an haul the milk to the Dairy, the income from the milk ended the pigs, the chickens would continue for a time but they to would end. The farm would reach increas with both owned and rented grounds of 280 acres. Wood was no longer sawed by hand the chainsaw would replace the backbreaking cross saw. This was the new style of farming.
You have just followed from one Farmers story of his beginnings to the way he would change his Farming, seen how change increase productivity. The ability to become more modern than before, this is the ability take flight not plight and change with it.
A famous quote reads “ Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment to man”
This quote dates back to George Washington the first President is the United States.
It definitely describes the 92 year old man, his name, Bob Pedersen and all fellow farmers.
Week two will follow another farmer with a different skill sets, yet the same goals as the first.
