Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
Farm Kids
For Christmas, I was gifted a book of short stories about growing up on a farm in Maine. Short stories work well for me. My reading time is before bed. A conclusion every few pages is just right. The book was not outstanding, but relatable to life on a farm.
I was exposed to this type of living as a child, but only immersed in it for brief periods. I was a tourist to the real thing. There was no necessity to my being there, no responsibility to aid my growth or the farm and family.
With less than 2% of Americans involved in agriculture, this century will undoubtedly produce a lot fewer of these farm children. I hope that this changes. The stories in this book outline the constant work of a farm, and the necessity to be useful from an early age. Consequently, the children were needed, appreciated, and constantly learning as they worked alongside the adults. I’ve not met farm kids that are not capable trouble shooters, or fear new challenges or trades.
The book’s stories also touch on the times between the work. This particular farm boasted woods, fields, pond, creek, gravel pit, and junk piles of old equipment. Unstructured time, combined with these acres of assets, seems a pretty good recipe for childhood. The remnants of our children’s forts and kingdoms remain a great reminder of their imaginations. I’ve not yet met a bored farm kid.
So, make sure children are visiting farms: we need them to become enchanted, and to be the next generation of farmers. Farmers to feed us and to entertain us as they write about growing up on farms in Maine
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.