Five Days as a Farmhand: Thoughts and Stories from a City-Kid on the Dusty Plain

Part 3 of 5 - "Dust Devils and Lunchtime"

I was fortunate enough to "sleep-in" until 7:00 AM on this glorious Wednesday morning. My dad woke me up and gave me a list of tasks to do for the day.

I began my day by crawling up into the bucket of the grain trucks and sweeping/shovelling out any leftover Nitrogen and Sulfur that we used for fertilizer the previous day. We would eventually load up the trucks with Phosphates for when we began to seed Canola later in the day.

The big trucks that I climbed in to sweep and empty. I usually drive the blue one!

Following the cleanup, we had to switch the shovels over on the cultivator. Seeding shovels are lighter than conventional shovels, and experience less resistance when in the soil. They are used specifically for seeding. I was given a hammer to hit the shovels off of the cultivator, and a screwdriver to clean the mud out of the grooves that the new shovels would soon occupy. It was a nice hot morning, but windy as hell. Behold the following Prairie equation: Strong winds + dry soil = DUSTSTORM. It was very dusty, and I had a runny nose and had just put sunscreen on. The dust formed a nice little dirt coating on every inch of exposed skin, and I couldn't help but feel like Pigpen (the kid that always has a dust cloud around him in the Charlie Brown comics/tv shows). I would take frequent breaks while knocking the shovels off to turn my face away from the oncoming dust devil.

Most of my friends are aware of  my distaste of chapsticks. It is my personal belief that even occasionally using chapsticks encourages dependency on the little tubes of moisturizing lip chap. I also never use lotion, for the same reason. A consequence of my opinion on the matter is dealing with moderately chapped lips from time to time. The strong wind took its toll on my lips, and I caved. I did in fact use chapstick for the first time in almost a year once I got back to Regina. Just in case you were wondering.

My father and his father, beside the air seeder that I frequently helped to fill.

After loading up the half-ton with canola seed again (which entails carrying about 15 bags of seed that weigh approximately 55 lbs each to the truck every load) I drove out to the field and helped my dad fill the air seeder before lunchtime. This brings us to our next segment..


"Farm Cuisine"

The legend of  the "Farm Cuisine" of Allen Faye dates back to suppers around the dinner table at my now deceased Nonna and Nonno's house (on my mothers side of the family). In an Italian household where food is regarded as a minor deity, stories of microwaved hot dogs, frozen food dinners and other processed instant food were the brunt of many jokes. I can't confirm the following, but I assume that Nonna cringed every time we mentioned our daily menu while working at the farm.

Typically, my mother will prepare a care package of tasty food to eat as leftovers (usually pasta, pork chops, casseroles, BBQ steak/burgers, etc) in Regina for us to take out when we go out. My mother is a very good cook, and the food is pretty damn good. However, the leftovers are usually demolished before long by our Prairie sky sized appetites and we switch to instant/frozen food as the main form of sustenance.

The fact of the matter is that eating food is not a prominent activity on the farm. It's almost viewed as more of a burden and a distraction from work than anything. The following is an average work-day sleep/meal schedule:

6:00-6:30: Wake up
6:30-7:00ish: Breakfast
Noon-1:00ish: Lunch
3:00-3:30ish: Break
9:30-10:30: Supper
11:00-Midnight: Sleep

Growing up, I would often head inside the house and eat food (normally snack food) out of sheer boredom. I remember one time when I was much younger that I found a very old package of Eno (an antacid that you mix into your drink to make it bubbly and relieve bloated stomachs) in the cupboards. I had the idea that if you were to mix it with fruit juice, it would make some sort of soda-like beverage. It really didn't pan out as planned.

On this particular day, I decided it would be fun to empty an entire package of Oreo Thinsation cookies into a package of banana pudding. There was no reason for this, other than relieving my boredom and increasing the efficiency with which I could consume calories. This creation was much more tasty than the Eno and fruit juice concoction.

-----

After I had finished eating my cookie/banana pudding I went out into the garden to water the recently seeded garden. Although our garden is now a fraction of what it once was, it still has raspberries, peas, carrots, lettuce, beets, onions, dill and potatoes. I remember the days when we also grew strawberries, triple the amount of raspberries, jalapenos, pumpkins, cucumbers, sunflowers and zucchinis.

Picking berries/peas and weeding the garden were tasks that usually fell to me as a child, and it was one of my least favourite jobs. I would weed and pick berries for hours as my dad was in the field, and he would come back to find that I had done a half-assed job and tell me to go do the job properly. This cycle would continue for multiple check-ups until I had properly done the job, and I hated every moment of it that didn't consist of eating the peas or raspberries.

My favourite back road where Saskatoon berries and wild hazelnuts grow

There used to be a patch of horseradish root growing wild across the road from the farm with which my grandparents would make THE BEST horseradish sauce. Saskatoon berry trees and wild Hazelnut shrubs that grow along a back road that my Grandfather will usually pick every season for pies, desserts, wines, etc. Fresh garden grown/wild fruits and veggies have always been a huge part of our family's eating habits.

Growing up, I resented gardens for all of the maintenance work they require. I've grown to enjoy the process over the past few years. It's very therapeutic, and quite rewarding to watch something that you plant and care for bloom/grow/produce delicious food to eat. I hope one day to have a garden of my own that I can tend to during the summer months.

I ended the day by finishing sweeping the quonset, moved some more seed bags and then started the tedious task of sorting bolts and tools in the shed. It was 9:30 by the time I stopped working and Dad came in from the field.