THE “AG” IN MY LIFE

Few people know that when I was in grades eight and nine I took the Future Farmers of America class which was offered in my school.  Knowing that I have spent fifty years in the Gospel ministry, including twenty-three years as a military chaplain, people probably would not suspect that in my early teen years I dreamed of one day moving back to Kentucky and being a farmer.

Those dreams doubtless filled my young mind because I was born on a farm and lived the first eight and one-half years on a couple of farms in Kentucky before we moved to Florida in 1951.  Then, too, for a couple of weeks each summer we would visit relatives back in Kentucky who lived on farms and somehow it seemed good to me.  I romanticized rural living in my mind.  So, when given the opportunity to take “Ag” class in school I jumped at the chance.

It was more than just those memories of living on a farm in Kentucky; after all, in Central Florida the main industry was citrus.  My dad had worked in the groves for several years as well as many of our neighbors and friends.  Furthermore, both Mom and Dad had worked in the packing house in Lake Alfred.  Our first two years living in Florida was in a house in the middle of an orange grove.  I must have thought that anyone who wanted to make it in this world certainly needed to know the basics of agriculture.

I liked Ag class taught by Mr. Gunson.  In fact, as I remember it, I excelled.  I was elected to offices in the Future Farmers of America.  I was among the few from our chapter that attended a state FFA convention in Daytona Beach one year.  I won a swine judging contest at a regional FFA meeting in Dade City (I still have the ribbon and medal!).  For two summers I attended a week of “Forestry Camp” held at a state park near White Springs.  There I learned about all the trees, as well as the flora and fauna, in Florida and was able to determine the board feet in a standing tree.

It was in AG class that I learned parliamentary procedure, studied and followed Robert’s Rules of Order, which served me well for fifty years of conducting meetings.  I imagine that this one learning was the best take-away from my Ag class, which made me adept at conducting meetings in the numerous churches and clubs of which I have been a part.

In the spring each year our Ag class would plant a garden on the school property.  We each had responsibilities in planning, planting, weeding, harvesting, and selling the produce.  In addition, Dad and I had a garden at home, out behind the garage.

Then, too, each student was required to have a project, keep accurate records, and hopefully show a profit.  My project the first year was to raise rabbits.  I convinced my mom that rabbits would provide food for the family.  After all, I had heard both Mom and Dad talk about eating rabbits and squirrels in Kentucky where Dad would often go hunting.  So with parental permission I purchased a pair of registered New Zealand rabbits.  I remember well when I was ready to kill and dress the first of my baby rabbits which had reached fryer age.  It was clear that I was to be the one to do the slaughtering and the dressing of the animal.  I managed this, though difficult, and Mom cooked the poor creature.  I clearly remember not having much of an appetite, and I think that was the first and last rabbit we ate from my rabbitry.  They were too much like “pets” to eat them with any enthusiasm.  At the high point I had twenty-six rabbits.  As for a project, I kept accurate records and learned the principles of bookkeeping, but little, if any, profit was realized from the rabbits.

The second year in FFA my project was to raise a calf.  I had discovered that the cattle auction in Lakeland sold new born calves quite often, so after getting permission from my parents to get a calf I busied myself with building a pen behind the garage.  Yes, we were in town and wondered if it were legal to raise a calf.  In this case, Dad and I decided it would be best to not ask.  One day Dad took me to the cattle auction where I bid on and bought a day old Hereford calf.  We took it the ten miles home in the backseat of our 1956 Ford.

Raising a male calf was not easy.  To begin with the calf was just one day old and needed milk at least twice a day.  Using powdered milk I would mix it in the mornings before school and in the afternoons when I got home.  After mixing the powered milk with water it would go into a pail with a nipple on the side.  The calf quickly learned to drink from the nipple and it became a twice daily routine.  Cleaning the manure from the pen also was a frequent task.  As the calf grew I knew that in order for the meat to be good the bull calf needed to be castrated.  So, at the proper age I borrowed a emasculatome, the tool to use to sever the seminal cords in the calf’s scrotum.  With Dad holding the calf as tightly as he could I operated the tool to do the dirty work.  I still remember the calf’s eyes rolling back in his head as the clamp cut through the seminal cords.  It was something that I did not want to ever have to do again.  Although I have seen days when I had rather castrate a bull than handle some of the issues with which I have had to deal.

After weeks of nursing the calf with milk with the bucket and nipple, I began to purchase dry cattle feed, a mixture of corn and other grains.  The calf grew into a beautiful steer.  Frequently I would put a halter on the steer and lead him around the yard.  One day he did not wait for me to attach the lead to the halter and took off across the yard and into our neighbor’s garden.  The chase was on.  I finally caught the steer and was more careful from then on.  John Owens, our neighbor and owner of the garden, never complained that I ever heard.

After months of raising the steer and knowing that at some point a neighbor would probably complain to the city that I was raising a farm animal in town, I was ready to sell him.  At that time my sister Barbara was working for Mr. Laurent, one of our county commissioners.  Mr Laurent had cattle, some of which he was pasturing near Dundee on land he owned.  Mr. Laurent offered to buy my steer and after some deliberation and the encouragement from my parents I sold him to Mr. Laurent.  Several times afterward Dad would take me to visit my steer in the pasture.

As required by my FFA class, I kept accurate records, and although I cannot remember the details these sixty years later, I feel sure that no profit was shown without some creative bookkeeping.  As with the rabbit project, the learning to care for an animal and keeping accurate records, was the valuable thing for me to learn.

Now in our retirement years we are living on acreage in Tennessee.  Is it finally a realization of those youthful dreams?  In some way, yes, but my feeble attempts at farming here in my later years has had a way of taking the romance out of farming.  It is hard and demanding work.  I am not sure I am up to it now that I am in my seventies!