THE FARMING GAME

         Fall grandeur at ranch

         My granddaughter, Kira, has a game called “The Farming Game” that she loves to play. And she is good at it. In this game the participants buy and sell agricultural commodities such as hay, grain, beans, fruit, cows, pigs, sheep, etc. They can get loans from the bank, using some of their farm ground as collateral. They have to pay taxes, pay for equipment, face crop loss due to drought, hail, or other weather problems, and lose livestock because of illness or predators. They can increase their herds and buy more ground if a neighbor decides to down-size or go out of business.

            Kira is always trying to get someone to play this game with her. She has played so often that she seldom loses.  The problem with playing this game with Kira, or anyone else for that matter, is that it is so much like what we do every day that to us it isn’t much of a game.

            You should hear Kira groan when she has to sell some livestock or crop because she has an equipment breakdown, a payment due or an increased tax assessment. That groaning isn’t much different from the groans I hear when Boyd goes through his tax assessment every year, or some equipment breaks down at a crucial time.  If Kira lands on a place on the game board that tells her some of her crop has been destroyed by hail, she is not happy, might even cry. When Boyd looks over his crops after a hail or wind storm, he is not happy. Although he doesn’t cry I’m sure he feels like it.

            Each time a player passes a certain spot on the game board they collect a preset amount of money, kind of like in the Monopoly game. In the real game of farming, there doesn’t seem to be a set amount of money waiting when a cycle has been completed. In fact, many times there are more payments, more repairs, and more ways of draining money from the pocket. More reasons for groaning and crying.

            One thing the board game doesn’t show is the joy of watching the crops grow out in the field. When the first sprouts appear above the soil, it seems like a miracle. The birth of a baby animal is special and not experienced on the board game.

The smells of farming are also missing from this board game. Fresh mown hay is probably my favorite farm scent. Dirt being turned over in the field has its own special odor. Then there are the not so pleasant smells: manure, diesel, oil, and sweat.

            Another thing lacking in the farm game is the sound of farming: the crowing of the rooster at the first light of the morning; the lowing of contented cows; the whinny of the horses as they race each other up and down the pasture; the mooing of the baby calves. There’s also the sound of the equipment as the men are working, plus the sounds of the cussing as the men work to repair something – that is one sound that would make any game X rated if it was used with it.

            I don’t know if a board game could be made to incorporate the sounds and smells of farming; probably would cost a lot of money to do it, but it would make the game more realistic. And aren’t we into “reality” type games anyway?

            So maybe Kira’s idea of getting people to play this board game with her is a way  to introduce people to agriculture. Perhaps that is something we should consider as we are buying gifts for our non-agriculture friends, or entertaining them in our homes. Of course, if we have friends that are highly competitive or emotional, they may get more involved in the game and we may lose them as friends.

WINTER WEATHER

            Looking out the window at the lack of snow this morning I’m transported back to the winter of 1948 - 1949. I must have been in the 4^th grade at the time, going to Ammon Elementary school. My teacher was Mrs. Lavonda Rhodes, my aunt. The snow came hard and heavy and the wind blew a lot that winter. We were in our brick home on Sunnyside Road, had only been there a few years.  The roads became blocked with the drifts, some as high as the bottom pole on the electrical poles. I have pictures of that, so I’m not exaggerating. It seems we were snowed in a lot that year. In order to get to school, runners were put on a hay wagon and a team of horses pulled it through the back fields of all the farm ground. Hay was put on the sled for us to sit on. Dad had to take some of his fences down to enable the sled to get through our place. I don’t know who it was that drove the horses with the sled, but what a fun time. We would be late to school every morning we rode on the sled, get there about 10 a.m. School didn’t start until 9 anyway, so we weren’t too late. Then the sled would be in front of the school at the end of the school day to take us back home. I don’t remember how long that lasted, but when the snow plows finally were able to get through they had a hard time because  the drifts were so high.

            Girls always wore dresses to school back then, and we wore ugly long brown stockings during the winter. Mother even had her girls wear cotton button down the top underwear that the legs reached to our knees. Oh I hated those socks and underwear, but they did help keep me warm. There were times when Mother had us wear a pair of slacks or even some snow pants under our dresses.  I can’t remember hoods on our coats, but we did have scarfs that we tied around our heads, and then knit gloves. Sometimes we had another scarf we would put up over our mouth and nose and tie at the back of our neck, keeping our neck warm too. Our boots went over our shoes.

            As I look back, I can’t remember suffering much from the cold dressed as we were. We didn’t have the insulated underwear they have now, nor down filled coats. I do remember snow pants. They were usually made of wool and were itchy, even though they were over ugly, brown, long stockings and yucky white underwear.

            The days we were snowed in were fun days for us. We would dress up warm, take our sled out and coast off the drifts into the yard. Sometimes we could get Dad to saddle the horse. Them we would take our skis out to the field, strap them on, grab a rope that was tied onto the horse and ski up and down the field. The skis we had just had one leather strap that went around the ski and up over the toe of our boots. Sometimes we could get Dad to pull us on the toboggan with the pickup.

            When we were in the house, I read. Usually we would borrow and trade Nancy Drew books with our cousins and friends, so we had plenty of reading material. I think this is the time when I gained my love for reading and the written word. I could read all day until Mother needed help with something.

            We don’t seem to have the snow storms now that we did then, and when we do the road clearing equipment is so much better than it was, so being snowed in isn’t a common winter event. But those snowed in days were fun-filled memory-making days.