~and I am a farmer's daughter~

This week at school our fourth graders were invited to visit a local farm in nearby Byers, Texas for the annual Clay County Ag. Day.  We were gifted with a beautiful and slightly windy weather day, with temperatures in the 70 degree range.  For 5 hours, the great outdoors was our classroom and our teachers were a fine bunch of folks who are committed to promoting the agricultural way of life.  It was fun to see the excitement on the faces of all the kids and if I could have seen my own face, I'm sure there would have been a smile on mine as well.

I was raised up in the country of south-central Kansas.  I'm a farm girl believer.

I was reminded of my own rural upbringing so much that day and as we moved from station to station, I felt an even greater appreciation for the life that my parents provided for me and my 6 siblings.  They could have chosen anywhere to bring their 7 children up.  If they would have wanted us all to live in the city or even a small town, then my folks could have done just that.  Yet they saw a different life for us, a life where things were a whole quieter and opportunities to grow up their children as well as their crops could happen.

That life was on a farm.

Until I was 9 years old, my family lived on 200 acres of land in the sand hills of Harvey County, Kansas.  We went to school in the little town of Burrton, a journey that took about 20 minutes or so on the old school bus that always hauled the Scott family to school each day.  My dad and older siblings milked the herd of cows we had every single morning before the sun came up. The little kids in the family had their own set of chores to do like feeding ducks and chickens, gathering eggs, and making sure that the waterers were clean and full.  When we got home from school, the same thing happened once again.  It was a good life, an honest life that was filled with important lessons for all to learn.  

When I was 9, my parents moved us all to what would become our hometown of Haven, Kansas.  It was just a 30 minute drive into Reno County where once again we would find a home in the country and settle down.  My father gave up farming on his own and started his custom combining business, "Scott Custom Harvesters."  For the next more than 2 decades, he would head south each year in May and work his way back up north through all of the Great Plains states as he harvested other farmers' crops of wheat, oats, barley, and corn.  In our house, my father's blood ran "Massey Ferguson" red for nearly all of his days in the business. Although I might not have seen it back then, I realize now just how hard both of my parents worked in order to raise their family in the way that they did.

Growing up as a farm kid taught me many valuable lessons and perhaps the greatest of them was the value of working hard.  It's a skill that has stayed with me all of my days.  I saw my folks go through tight times and still come out with their heads above the water.  I've seen some of those rough times as well and as I worked through them, I remembered the examples that my mom and dad taught me.  For that and a whole lot of other things they did for me, I'm most grateful.

It was a pleasure to take those 40 little Petrolia Pirates on their field trip this week.  I've said many times throughout my 38 year career as a teacher and will continue to say until I take my last breath, that the classroom is not the only place for kids to learn their lessons.  Sometimes the best place of all to learn is on the farm of a kind gentleman named Tommy Henderson.

Wednesday of this week, we did just that.

                               My fourth grade homeroom kids~For the record, we had a great time!

                               I am this farmer's daughter and always will be.