I grew up on a small Dairy farm/ beef cattle ranch just a few miles from here. I was born in 1979 so my childhood was in the 80's and 90's. I think I had the perfect childhood. Growing up on a farm was fun! I got to ride horses, drive tractors, work with my hands, use antique tools, (I'll cover that more later). I had a lot of fun, and learned a lot at an early age that I really didn't know, would later shape me into the person that I a today, or later shape our family and family business into what it is today and what I am going to make it become.
Tough Times:
It was tough in agriculture in the 1980's. I did not know it at the time being a kid and all, just from what I've heard, a lot of family farms went bust. Cattle prices were low, milk prices were low, fortunately feed costs were also low, but that hurt the feed producers. All the while prices for everything else were on the rise. Interest rates were high and from what I've heard banks were difficult to deal with. Most of our living came from the dairy farm and milk prices did not fluctuate a bit from 1980 - 2000. You could set your watch by it, we were paid $11/cwt. for raw milk. (That's $11 per hundred pounds, or roughly 88 cents/ gallon.) Of course all this time prices of everything else went up at an alarming rate.
My Dad later confided in me that he thought he'd lost the family farm twice! This is a farm that had been in the family for three generations at the time and that he, and his brother and sisters had grown up on. Imagine how it would have felt to be the one to loose the family farm.
Through it all, I had no idea that we were so poor. (In a way, poor is a state of mind, we were money poor, that is all.) My Dad always kept a positive attitude and we worked. Milking cows , and running the beef cattle herd, along with a little farm ground is no small feat. At the same time, my Dad as a side business was a seed dealer. I remember being 7 years old and asking for chores to do to help out. From that point on, it was my job to feed the bucket calves. (On a dairy farm there are always bucket calves to feed.) Of course when I was old enough I had many, many other responsibilities around the family farm as well. I was in the hay field driving a tractor with a mower at the age of 11. That may not be OSHA approved, but it is life in rural America. I always wanted my birthday off, as my birthday is during haying season, that never happened.
I remember my 8th birthday well, I was so mad that I had to go and feed the bucket calves that morning. I drug my feet, and threw a typical 8 year old temper tantrum, my parents had hid my birthday present in the grain bin! It was a BB gun! They were teaching me a work ethic, way before I even understood a work ethic. And, I thank them for that.
In later years almost every one of my birthdays at least through my teenage years was spent in the hay field. Not a big deal, even today being self employed I work through my birthdays unless it happens to fall on a Sunday. I figure a birthday is great! It's much better than not having one, but the fact of the matter is that everybody does have birthdays. I try to have one at least once a year. Besides, I like to work. As a grown up, I like my job, even as a kid I just plain liked to work. I hope I can instill that work ethic in my own children.
When I say that I grew up poor, I'm really not exaggerating. Other small family farms were going out of business, but some others were driving newer equipment. We just maintained what we had and stayed in business, but barely.
I got told no a lot as a kid. I wanted the normal fun things that kids want, but my parents simply could not buy them, and keep the family farm in business. But, they did allow me a way to earn money, (I raised chickens and sold eggs) and they let me use the tools that they had to build the things that I wanted. That taught me a very valuable lesson, I could either save the money from selling eggs to buy things, or I could buy the materials and build whatever I wanted. I had no real building instructor at the time so sometims I would have to buy the materials and a book. These were pre-internet days. So, at an early age I was taught a work ethic, and I became pretty self sufficient. In fact, I was a young entrepreneur, selling eggs door to door for $.85/doz. I sold thousands of eggs. And, learned to build largely from books. If I didn't know how to build something, I would find a book on it and experiment a little. The answers are usually out there if one is willing to do the research. Even without the internet. From that young age I've always thought that I can build anything that I set my mind to, and so far I have not been proven wrong.