Remembering farm life

Backyard garden was difference between feast and famine

Recently a radio broadcast discussed automation and robots milking the cows on a dairy farm. It brought back memories of growing up as a farmer’s daughter.

Though you might be hardpressed to find a farm in Glace Bay today, that wasn’t always the case. I daresay a simple small garden in the backyard made the difference between feast and famine.

If you’ve never experienced a garden, you’d really be surprised how much grows in a small space. Many a supper this summer was enhanced by a handful of yellow beans or a cucumber or tomato passed over the fence by my avid gardening neighbour.

A niece down the street has a yard full of chickens and rabbits. The first time I saw Bacon, the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, walking the streets of No. 2, I thought I was seeing things.

On Sept. 16, Open Farm Day listed Thyme for Ewe in Millville as the closest farm to go have a look-see, and more than 400 people did just that. What a wonderful attempt to re-connect people with how and where our food comes from. I read somewhere that we will need to produce 60 per cent more food by 2030 to avoid hunger. Every little bit can help.

Historically, in the town of Glace Bay, families shared a cow to ensure babies had milk. I grew up on a mixed farm. We had about 20 dairy cows we milked, pigs we butchered, chickens for eggs and butchering, and garden produce for sale. We had a little roadside stand on the driveway where we sold our fresh farm products. We also had a tremendous blueberry patch and we preserved food.

My father, always wanting to have animals, moved to Trout Brook after our house in Prime Brook burned when we were children. We moved in with an old bachelor in his house full of antiques, and my father helped him farm. There was no water or electricity. Cows were milked by hand, not machine. Water was hauled up from the well and there was a bucket and a dipper in the porch for drinking. I guess that was enlightening enough that we moved on to Mira Gut, which did have electricity and a gravity-fed artesian well, not to mention, an apple orchard.

We girls had the chore of milking cows before we went to school. Many a morning, we missed Danny Allen’s school bus. Chores came first. Besides we were only “girls,” we’d only grow up to be wives and mothers, so it didn’t matter if we finished school or not.

I became interested in knitting as a teen when the option came to milk the cows or knit some mitts for the kids, you can guess my choice. I never did like getting my hands dirty. My father taught me how to knit socks, but normally it was me with a set of four double-points, knitting mitts nightly for my four siblings and our three cousins who lived with us. 4-H was also a part of a country girl’s life back then, knitting, sewing, cooking, gardening and showing animals.

I often say, “We gotta make hay while the sun shines” — sometimes to blank faces. I guess not growing up on a farm, it wouldn’t have the same significance. Cows’ milk was our major source of income and we were their caretakers. We had to make that hay. I learned to drive a tractor at about age 12. With a red and yellow New Holland rake and baler, we had rectangular bales of about 50-70 pounds, not the humongous “cow marshmallows” of today. On farms, children were the labour force. Hay had to be dry, so we’d stack, load it on trucks and put it up the conveyor belt into the hay loft. If it was wet, it could heat up, catch fire, and burn down the barn. More than once, we were out in the moonlight, getting that hay into the barn before it rained — thus the expression, “making hay while the sun shines.”

Yes, there was a season to everything on the farm, just as in life. Spring plowing and planting. Summer tilling and weeding. Fall harvest and preservation. Winter holidays right? ... Not. Winter was the time for finances, planning and maintenance.

Farming is not a 9-5 job. We still had cows to milk and pigs to feed twice daily and manure to shovel … That never ended. So even if robots do take over to give the farmers a break, it still takes a heart and soul commitment

I admit, the hardier turnips and cabbage might be all we had left in our root cellar come spring. Back then there were no special meals if you didn’t like something; it was, “if it’s on your plate, you eat it.” I wouldn’t eat turnips or cabbage for many years. But, hey it wasn’t their fault, right? So, they are back on my diet and I’ve rediscovered boiled dinners.

But it wasn’t all hard work. I still smile today when I see a hillside and think of rolling down hills and tobogganing. We ate well with food from our gardens and apple orchards.