听 听 听For some undefined reason of late I have been thinking about my grandfather and what his take on a modern farm would be.
听 听 听That thinking came into focus more sharply when a friend of mine Harold Petkau posted a few photographs of what is left of his family鈥檚 old farm yard, a collection of gray and dilapidated buildings.
听 听 听The house was small, yet no doubt raised a family far larger than the norm today.
听 听 听The barn was tiny, but would have likely kept the family in pork and beef, and milk, the cream going to market in cans to generate some cash flow on the farm.
听 听 听While that might not have been exactly the situation on the Petkau farm, it would have been close, because that was typical of any Prairie farm in the era the building in the pictures would have been built.
听 听 听It was the farm of my grandfather as well, a small-scale, increasingly looking smaller when compared to today鈥檚 operations. They incorporated a mixed farm approach, where there was a bit of everything. Milk cows, chickens, a few pigs, and all of it fed from a small land base.
听 听 听In my grandfather鈥檚 case he retired to town having never farmed more than 480-acres, less when you took out the yard site, and a couple of river runs.
听 听 听That small farm raised a family though, and kept 鈥榯hree squares鈥� on the table, with healthier fare than the processed food we often turn to these days.
听 听 听And in terms of time that was not so long ago.
听 听 听I鈥檓 only 55, feeling 75 some days, and thinking I鈥檓 still 35 on others. I can just remember our last milk cows, but watched neighbours hand milking and selling cream until I was into my teens.
听 听 听I collected eggs, and helped butcher our own chickens in the fall, and add a pig to the huge deep freeze.听
听 听 听I hauled potatoes and carrots and turnips by the bag full from garden to cellar in the fall.
听 听 听The aroma of homemade jams and pickles remain sharp memories.
听 听 听These are the things of my grandfather鈥檚 era, fading away in my lifetime.
听 听 听If my grandfather was alive he would have little reference for the huge tracked tractors used on many farmers today. If memory serves the last tractor he likely operated was a 930 Case.
听 听 听The 930 came out new in 1969, selling for $6,700 US, and had a drawbar horsepower of 70.听
听 听 听For a quick comparison the CaseIH Steiger 435QT Quadtrac (tracked) came to the market in 2008, with a 2010 price of $336,979 US according to听. The engine is 435 hp.
听 听 听Grandfather鈥檚 last seeder was a 12-foot press drill. You would put a lot of miles on a vehicle looking for a farm using a press drill today.
听 听 听Instead, today farmers are using massive zero till units which would be completely unknown to my grandfather.
听 听 听And, I can only imagine the look of disbelief at seeing a modern high clearance sprayer.
听 听 听I wonder if he could even fathom the concepts of GMO crops, or GPS technology.
听 听 听It would be a strange thought for him that grain had to be hauled past a dozen small towns to even find a rail line or elevator.
听 听 听And not having to rise every morning on most farms today to collect eggs, milk a cow, or feed a few pigs would undoubtedly make him shake his head at the thought of why someone would rather buy their food than raise it.
听 听 听It would be like walking into a sci-fi version of farming for my grandfather, and all in a matter of 30 to 40 years.
听 听 听Which leads me to the next question, will I recognize a farm in another four decades as having anything in common with what I know today?
