Winter Time Farm Boy Memories

Several months ago I reflected on how my Dad prepared for Christmas. Today I will share a memory of how my Dad prepared for the upcoming planting season each Winter. Even as young Farm Boys, both my Brother and I knew that you did not plant corn until late April and early May each year. Yet every February our Dad would take us out to the machine shed on a Saturday and have us help him rehab the corn planter. You know that February in Iowa can be quite cold. This Machine Shed had no heater and lacked all creature comforts. Yet we took the Corn Planter apart and checked for weak parts and cleaned the surfaces that needed to be shiny for the upcoming planting season. We would always do as we were told, but you can be confident that we also asked why do this when it is so cold. We could do it when the weather warmed up. This line of thinking sure made a lot of sense to two young Farm Boys back in the late 40s and the early 50s.

Yet, every February we participated in the same evolution with our Dad always reminding us that you can not plant corn if the equipment breaks down. His mantra was to always be ready and he was.

As a mature adult I can now appreciate this thought process. As a Young Farmer, our Dad with four children to raise was always preparing for the future. In later years we four would be joined by two others so there were six children in the family.

I suspect that all of us learned this important aspect of living from our Dad. Be ready when the season is correct by preparing for it in advance. After all you can not plant corn with a broken down planter!!!

Certainly a great life lesson that we all learned early in our lives.