Trip to the past

Entrance to the AWHC Wellsville. Ut.

 A few weeks ago, my wife and I took our three year old to the fall harvest days at the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville Ut.  This was a great experience to see many things that are now considered to be obsolete.  We experienced what it was like on the farm in the late 1800's early 1900's.  The machinery and tools, the homes and even the processes of food storage.  This was a great way to relate to our three year old what was different 100 years ago.  We saw the blacksmith shop, the wood-rite shop, the mercantile and the farmhouse.  All of which were educational and fun to see.  We also visited the native american tee pee and the mountain man trading post.  Some of the highlights for our daughter was the corn shelling in a piece of chicken wire and the handmade corn husk dolls. 

Making corn husk dolls, Jordan Bartholomew
Oct, 2015

Shelling corn cobs, Jordan Bartholomew
Oct 2015

My perspective of this experience had a new vision from my time in Farm and Literature. I imagined this not being a special experience but a daily occurrence.  The settlers and homesteaders would have to do these things on a daily basis to survive.  A self sufficient people living off the land.  This is something that as a society has strayed from.  We now rely on Walmart for all our stuff and assume everything is made in China.  What would we all do if we had no choice but to return to the land and make do without the luxuries of the 21st century.  Would we be able to do it?

   

Little more like the farmer

Riggott, Dean. "Farm Life." Dean Riggott Photography. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

        The way that the general public looks at farmers is quite different from how farmers really are.  The mainstream media likes to use the generalized term of red-neck or back-woods.  Out in the mid-west they call them Hoosiers.  Whatever the name is they all have a negative connotation.  Unsophisticated, unintelligent and uncivilized.   These are terrible generalizations tat need to be done away with.  The reality is that farmers are good down to earth people that contribute so much to society.  Hard work mixed with discipline, blood, sweat, and family values.   

        This photo taken by Dean Riggott shows a little more than a pitch fork and  a dirty pair of boots.  This instantly took me back to the times when I would help my friend muck out the barn.   The smell of manure and a weathered straw are singed into the memories.  This was not a onetime ordeal.  This was something that was done on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.  Not just in the summer  but fall, winter, spring as well.  Although this image may not be fancy or complex it tells the tale of the hard working farmer.   The pitch fork is used, worn, and dirty.  The boots look to be in the same shape.  The blurry background of straw suggest that the work is not done.   In fact the work will never be done for this farmer.  There will always be straw to pitch, hay to stack, tractors to fix , fields to harvest and the list goes on.

        Although farmers may get a little unruly in the movies, most of them in the real world don't have the time.  Sun up to sun down farmers are working.  Images like this help me to better appreciate what farmers do.  I say if we could all be a little more like that farmer we would be better off.