It was fun to visit Wild Turkey Farms and talk to Lee and Domisty Menius.
As I watched their boys joyfully dumping turkey feed on the ground, it made me think about the dwindling number of kids who get that kind of experience. I’ve always felt lucky that I grew up on a farm, although there were moments ó like the ones spent worming sheep while ankle deep in mud ó when I’d have traded my life for a city kid’s.
Watching Lee and Domisty together made me remember my own parents and how they worked as a team on our farm.
Before Lee invested in a chicken-plucking machine, he and Domisty had to de-feather the chickens themselves ó not the most pleasant of jobs.
Domisty mentioned that she’d done it while 8 months pregnant. Lee considered that fact thoughtfully for a few seconds.
“Did I mention that I’ve got a pretty good wife?” he asked.
I suspect my dad would say the same thing. Although my mother had a full-time job as a teacher, she did her share around the farm. She drove the tractor sometimes during hay baling time, particularly before my brother and I were old enough to help. (Baling hay, by the way, was a chore that I loved.)
Mom tended to be a part of anything involving birth, whether it was sheep, puppies or our Jersey cow.
When I was 7 or 8, I noticed that she was scrambling eggs for our dog. Because our collie Barca was having puppies, she needed to be treated especially well, I was told, so her babies would be healthy and her milk would be plentiful.
That was my very first lesson in the importance of pre-natal care.
I remember one particularly nasty winter when my mom had to handle the farm by herself.
It was late winter, and my father had gone to a Ruritan conference in New Orleans. Mom was left to deal with the lambing. She was well-equipped to do that ó but neither she nor my dad could have foreseen that ewes would be prolapsing after delivery left and right that week. I’ll spare you the gory details, but with the help of our wonderful vet, Doc Arey, my mom handled it like a trouper. Dad was proud of her.
I remember her teaching me how to feed orphaned lambs with a bottle. When I was a little older she taught me how to tube-feed them by pouring a homemade version of colostrum down a rubber tube inserted down the lamb’s throat and into his stomach.
Being able to do that makes you feel like you can handle just about anything.
My brother had a much deeper farm experience than I did ó which is probably why he ended up getting degrees in both agricultural engineering and veterinary medicine. He spends his days caring for herds of dairy cows, mostly owned by Mennonites. Where I come from, Mennonites are the ones who have clung to the family farms most tenaciously, refusing to sell off their land for developments.
We all benefit when family farms thrive. So here’s to Lee and Domisty and the others like them who are making our communities better places to live ó and giving their lucky kids an irreplaceable experience.
Contact Katie Scarvey at 704-797-4270 or kscarvey@salisburypost.com.