Ten Steps for a Successful Farm Visit

Many farmers love having visitors, and appreciate seeing their farm through other peoples' eyes. But to ensure the visit goes smoothly, here are a few loose guidelines to keep in mind:

1) Call first. We might be napping.

2) Show up when you say you will. Please don't be late. At least call if you’re delayed. Bring cookies as a peace offering for your tardiness. In fact, bring cookies even if you’re on time.

3) Bring food. Speaking of cookies, farmers forget to eat, so we’re always grateful when someone waves a pan of lasagna or a loaf of homemade bread under our noses.

4) Leave your pets at home. Yes, I know Buster would love to run and stretch his citified legs, but chasing chickens and snapping them up and shaking them until dead just isn’t good Visitor Behavior.

5) Wear the ugly plastic boots. Even if you’ve never stepped on another farm your entire life, a farmer may ask you to slip a pair of clear plastic boots over your shoes. Disease can spread easily from farm to farm and devastate a flock or herd, so forget fashion and learn to shuffle-walk so the boots stay on. See photo above, where Melissa is modeling the latest in plastic boots.

6) Bring cookies. Oops, I repeat myself.

7) Raise well-behaved children. Yes, I know Bradley would love to run and stretch his citified legs, but chasing chickens and snapping them up and shaking them until dead just—oh, that’s the dog. Sorry. But really---if you don’t control your children, then the farmer must, and it tarnishes our carefully cultivated image as nice people.

8) Wear appropriate clothing. Don’t arrive in sandals or flip flops or, God forbid, barefoot, and expect your walk through a farm to be a pleasant experience. Of course, if you like the feel of duck poop squishing through your toes, who am I to judge.

9) Pay attention to gates. If you go through a gate that’s open when you get there, leave it open. If you go through a gate that’s closed when you get there, please close it behind you. If you’re at the tail end of a group of people and don’t know if the gate was open or closed, ask.

10) If possible, let us know you appreciated and enjoyed the tour. Two tickets on an Alaskan cruise would be nice. Or maybe new tires for the Farmall 706 tractor. Offer to farm-sit for a month so the farmer can step out and see what the rest of the world looks like.

Or, if none of these are within your reach, cookies would be nice.

Farming Jargon

This is a photo of Melissa worming the sheep. This must sound very weird to non-farmers. We give worms to our sheep? No, the more descriptive term would be de-worming. We give them medication to kill the worms in their intestines. (Grazing animals tend to ingest worms, which hang out in their intestinal tract and suck blood and do all sorts of damage.)

It gets worse. Melissa is drenching that lamb. Drenching means you make them swallow the medication. She’s using a drench ‘gun’ to get the medication far enough into their mouths they have to swallow. For years a close friend thought we submerged the sheep when we drenched them, getting them all wet.

Sometimes farmers use jargon that even confuses other farmers. I recently did a booksigning in my home town, and my favorite high school teacher showed up. Turns out the guy used to raise sheep (who knew high school teachers had lives outside of school?) So we started laughing and swapping sheep stories.

At one point he shook his head, eyes twinkling. “Ever had a ewe who cast her withers?”

Cast her withers? Ahhh....hmmm.

He saw my confusion. “You know, she threw her bed.”

Okay, now I’m thinking...petulant sheep? Temper tantrum? Then I remembered some old-school shepherds refer to a ewe’s uterus as her 'bed,' sort of like it’s the bed where the fetus hangs out.

Relieved, I nodded. “Oh, you mean she prolapsed her uterus.” Her uterus had turned itself inside out and come out her vagina.

“Yeah!” Mr. H. said. “I thought it was the afterbirth, so I grabbed hold of it and pulled for all I was worth.”

Okay, feeling faint now....

Luckily Mr. H figured out what he had and soon stopped pulling. Lordy.

More jargon. When you meet a sheep farmer, you can safely tuck your thumbs in your jeans, rock back on your heels, and say, “So, how’d lambing go this year?” When the ewes give birth to lambs, we call the process lambing.

When you meet a cattle rancher, impress him or her by looking thoughtful and asking, “So, how’d calving go this year?” When cows give birth to calves, it’s called calving.

Watch out for pigs, however. You’ll get a snicker and a snort if you ask a pig farmer, “So, you started piggleting yet?” The correct term for hogs giving birth is farrowing.

But this is such a boring word, and on the surface, makes no sense. I’m sure there’s a reason for it, but I’d like to propose we replace farrowing with piggleting. The English language is fluid, after all (admit it—you use ‘google’ as a verb) so why not?

Piggleting is a more accurate term and using it will improve communication between farmers and non-farmers.

Besides, I came up with the word, and I think it’s darned cute.

Beware the White Hen

This white hen is on a mission, a determined chicken, a chicken who knows what she wants, where it is, and who will give it to her. This chicken hangs out in our garage/shed, waiting for me. When I appear, she follows so closely on my heels that if I stopped suddenly she could look straight up my skirt. Good thing I never wear one.

In the garage/shed there is a blue bin full of black sunflower seeds that we feed to songbirds in the winter. She knows that if she follows me, I will say amusing things like “Go away. Leave me alone. Stalking is a crime.” She does not give up. Finally I sigh heavily, then shuffle over to the blue bin, the chicken skipping with excitement behind me, thinking triumphantly: Once again I have made her do my bidding.

Here’s a warning about a bin containing seeds or feed: One must first peek inside the bin to make sure there are no mice in there, since a mouse who gets in usually can’t get out. When you stick your bare arm down into the bin, you don’t want it to become an escape ladder lowered down to a desperate mouse.

Once I’ve determined the bin is mouse-free, I sprinkle a handful of sunflower seeds on the ground, and the white chicken pecks happily, willing to leave me alone, at least until the next time I enter the shed.

Even though we have over forty chickens, it’s only one chicken who does this, and it’s been going on for years. Melissa obviously taught one chicken about the blue bin, but that chicken has long since died. I imagine some sort of deathbed scene, perhaps from The Godfeather, in which the aging matriarch passes on the Secret of the Blue Bin to a younger hen.

Our hens are free-range, which means they take dirt baths in the driveway, and they eat grasshoppers off the lawn.

It also means they are free to range right into my garage and strong-arm me into giving them treats.