Farm kids.
Why do you do this farm thing?
It’s a question you need to have a good answer to, or you won’t have a strong enough reason to do the hard things farming requires.
In our case, and for many of you, it’s farm kids. Our kids, and your kids. It’s about raising a new generation that knows how to do things and is strong in body, mind, and spirit. This has been our grounding, guiding goal for the past 26 years of Baker’s Green Acres history.
Mark had promised his son Kyle, who was 8 yrs. old, a goat when they got to their new Air Force base in Montana. It took us a year, but a goat was one of the first animals we got on our first farm in Fort Shaw. Mark had worked with farm kids in the service and found them to be creative and capable problem solvers who were good to work with. So, that’s why he got Kyle a goat. One of the first problems Kyle learned about was that pigs can out eat a goat. The poor thing tried to keep up with the pigs we got after him and couldn’t hack it. It was a sad lesson for us, and only the start of many lessons.
Baker’s Green Acres has been the backdrop for raising 8 kids who know how to cook, clean, plant a garden, care for animals, Macguiver almost anything to make it work, talk on the phone, and let the customer be right.
This may look like a drain, but it’s much more.
It’s a project, a lesson in masonry and plumbing. And the catalyst for all that memory and “why.”
Jim and Frank each did a drain in our new butcher shop floor, which required jackhammering through the concrete, placing the drain, and concreting it back in. “Mine’s not as good as Frank’s.” Jim was a little bummed about his work, which looked fine to me. It was a little sad to my mama heart to hear him say that, but came back to our WHY.
The truth was that he accomplished a big task that’ll make our chicken, hog, and beef processing easier. He had figured out the couple irregularities (farm construction always involves those) that came up. And, an even bigger life lesson had presented itself: “always do your best.” When you do your best, you’ve nothing to feel bad about. Jim’s good at being philosophical, so he got all that pretty quick.
This is why farm kids rock. Why farm kids are the goal. The farm is a perfect catalyst for making great people. Not that you can’t parent good kids otherwise, but working with nature facilitates natural lessons.
Always know your “WHY.” Because your why is your North Star that will guide you.
And if your kids are your WHY, never give up. Hang in there. Use the lessons the farm dishes up to grow great kids. Drains, animals, gardens come and go, but farm kids will always rock the world.
Check out this blog for more on this topic: Family affair: pastured poultry
The Baker kids are part of everything Baker’s Green Acres does. Even classes! They help run the classes, in fact. Part of the value of coming to an on farm class is immersion into a working farm family. Talk with Frank. Help Jim milk the cows. Enjoy Rachel’s culinary talents with farm fresh food. They might even teach you how to do something as they are experts and involved! Check out all our on farm opportunities and immerse yourself in what’s possible for your farm and family.
