When I was just a little kid, I'm talking before Kindergarten, my mom was teaching and my dad was a service man for J&K farms. For those of you that don't know, a service man is the guy who drives a company truck from hog farm to hog farm telling the growers what they need to do to keep up with company standards. They're basically the messenger/delivery guy. My dad was doing that job for J&K Farms which was a hog growing company that got phased out later on down the road. While my parents were working I went to daycare! I really can't remember much from those days though. Eventually the plan changed and my dad's last day of work was my last day of daycare.
My dad bought a nursery and a topping floors and was contracted to grow pigs for Murphy Brown. After that, I went to work with him everyday! One of my clearest memories is using my hands to mix the iron supplements for the piglets. The hogs have been a constant in my life. You can't spend that much time on a farm and not pick up a few life lessons along the way. Here are a few.
1. There is nothing like getting good and dirty.
It may just be the country girl in me but there is a large part of my happiness scale dedicated to getting down and dirty. It feels good to end a day looking like you got some serious work accomplished. Whether it was getting covered in dirt running hogs up and down the shoot, getting splattered by pipe glue fixing a water pipe, or getting a coating of hog feed after a spill, the farm always sent me home with a collection of stains for the washing machine.
2. There is nothing like getting good and clean.
While getting dirty is fun and all, a good shower tops off a day. No one wants to hang around someone that smells like a hog farm. A good hot shower washes the stink off leaving you feeling like a fresh canvas.
3. You have to celebrate the little victories.
One of the very basic parts of being a hog farmer getting the dead pigs out of the pin. It may seem morbid but just think about how much worse it would be if we left them in with the rest of the pigs. Some days are worse than others, but generally there are about one or two dead pigs a day between all of the houses. I remember one day my Dad and I walked the aisles of the houses to find that there were no dead pigs. We climbed back into the truck and I looked to my dad and said, "We need to celebrate and go get some candy." My dad laughed and wheeled us down the street to the local store where we ate our candy. Next we went to the other farm and once again, no dead! Super excited I told my dad again, "We have to go get candy again!" Even though that was a little victory it was still nice to celebrate!
4. You can't curve nature.
The sun is going to shine bright and hot on days when the water lines are broken. The rain is going to come down in sheets for two weeks at a time when your lagoon levels are high. It is going to snow half a foot when the shoot is broken and you're trying to load pigs. Nature works in mysterious ways, and there is nothing you can do about it. You've got to hunker down and ride it out.
5. If you're going through it, odds are so is someone else.
I remember a time when it rained almost non-stop for about two weeks. My dad was stressed out because the lagoon was getting too high and there was no time to pump between down pours. We had to pay someone to come take a load out just so it wouldn't overflow. Talk around the neighborhood revealed all of the other hog farmers were having to do the same thing. During the dog days of summer when it is too hot to function the pig death level spikes. Just when it seems like you're the only one losing half of your pigs, the dead box reveals you aren't the only one. It is easier to get through the hard times when you aren't suffering alone.
6. It is nice to be your own boss.
When you own a hog farm you make your own hours. Somedays it takes an hour tops to walk through and make sure everything is working like it should. Other days it seems like all hell has broken loose and you get stuck at the farm for hours trying to make repairs. That being said, my dad never missed one of my softball games. He has always been able to run up to the school to pick me or one of my two sisters up if we get sick. Even though he has to deal with the challenges of running his own ship, he can still dock it in time for the first pitch.
People always ask me about what it is like to work on a hog farm or they say things like "I bet that's fun!" I used to tell them I hated it and there was nothing fun or good about it. This past summer I've changed my tune. I've learned a lot and really found something that I enjoy (on those good days). There are a lot of life lessons to be learned on a farm and these are just a few of the important ones. I don't know what kind of career I'll end up in but I'm thinking farming might be calling.
