Growing up in Rural Manitoba

Growing up in Rural Manitoba

March 2018

Karen Allison Hiebert

            I grew up on a farm in rural Manitoba.  I believe that has had a profound effect on who I am.  I have 4 sisters and no brothers.  That has also made a big impact on my life.

            Did any of you grow up on a farm?  In small town?  In Rural Manitoba?

            The farm I grew up on is near Roland Manitoba.  If you travel rural Manitoba it is the town with the big pumpkin, if that doesn’t mean anything it is a town 97 km south and west of Winnipeg. That area is very flat.  People used to say it is so flat you could watch the dog run away for 4 days.  My family farm has very good soil.  The pioneers in my family who settled there 130 years ago were fortunate to homestead that area.  My family had an exclusively grain farm since I was about 6 years old.

            When you grow up on a farm you work on the farm.  Often boys and girls had different jobs but because I had no brothers, and my father believed in gender equality and because there was work that needed to be done the girls in my family did all of the kinds of farm work.  It starts off small, pulling a few weeds here, helping pick strawberries while Mom is doing it anyhow. It grows from there.

            The first sustained job I remember was to walk back and forth across where the old barn had burnt down a few weeks before pulling a big horseshoe magnet on a sting trolling for metal pieces like nails.   

Then it grows, Spray marking – this job has gone the way of the dodo bird but it was a real job in my day.  I think we would have been deemed fit for this job when we were about 7 years old.  When spraying crops for weeds it is important that the same area is not resprayed and that no area is missed.  My father cut a board to the right length that when it was flipped 4 times it was the same length as the sprayer boom.  So Dad dropped you off in the middle of the field with the board and drove away.  You put the board in the middle of the tractor tracks and counted 4 flips.  Our fields were very rectangular and all about ¼ of a mile long. What is that? about ___ km.  So now the tractor drives away and you have nothing to do until it turns at the end of the field when you must hold the board up while your father drives at you.  So now, you are to hold the board in place as long as you can so he can drive straight and not waste spray or miss a spot but he is driving straight at you.  When you feel he will hit you if you don’t move soon you flip the board 4 times and get ready for him to drive at you from the other end of the field.  It likely takes about 7 min. to get to the end of the field then you must have the board held up ready again.  So you have a 7 year old child in the middle of a field of grain. I suppose the grain is about 10 inches tall.  She has 7 to 10 minutes to amuse herself but how?  You can sing your heart out.  You can inspect the grain and the soil. Y You can memorize the landscape.  You can see how far you can walk and get back in time.  If you do find a way to amuse yourself do not get carried away.  If dad has to honk to remind you to get the board up you know you are a very bad little farmer and feel ashamed.  It took about half a day to empty the sprayer and I got paid $1.00 for every tank.  So you learn to amuse yourself and to be ready and precise and contribute.

I still dread the words, “Karen, come help in the shop for a while.”  This means you get to hang around while Dad works a piece of machinery or a truck and hand him tools.  It is another be ready all the time but wait and wait in between.  Of hold the flashlight right here so I can see.  He puts his head between the flashlight and the object.  No not like that you don’t have it in the right place. This has led to me buying my husband every kind of magnetic, bendy, clamp on light that is invented.  I do not want to hold the flashlight.

Most of the work was more physical, hoeing, watering plants, doing laundry and hanging it out.

I can’t remember learning to drive. It was something you just did.  We had a large yard and a riding lawn mower.  I can’t remember when we were deemed old enough to drive it, maybe around 10.  Then your job would be to mow the lawn.  We had two big parts to our lawn which each took about 3 hours to mow.  When you were 13 you were old enough to drive the tractor in the field for a day.  Harrowing was usually the first tractor job you were given.  Harrowing serves the same purpose as raking in a garden. The thing about harrowing in there is a lot more feet of harrow than it seems.  So as not to miss any spots you have to drive as close to the end of the field as you can before turning but not too far or that mass of harrow you have behind you will hook on something.  Then you have to figure out how to fix your problem.  Now harrowing does not need to be as precise as spraying so you do not have a marker to drive at.  You just look out ahead and see where the edge of the harrowing stopped and place the tractor so this lap will just overlap a tiny bit.  However if one stops paying attention for even a few seconds it is possible to find yourself with harrowing all around you or no harrowing at all around you.  Ooops.  Find a way to fix that!!

Other tractor work followed.  Saturdays in busy season were spent in the field.  Evenings might also find us in the field.  If mom was on the tractor when we got home from school a note outlined what we were to make for supper.

Harvest is my favorite season on the farm.  I love the weather, the bit of excited rush and the work.  Driving the swather was my favorite job.  The swather cuts the grain and leaves it in big rows to dry a bit before the combine comes and picks it up and separates the grain from the chaff.  The swather has a big real that pushes the grain onto the blades and then big canvasses that move the cut grain into the big rows.  Everything is happening at once.  I loved it.

I did not always love working on the farm.  I often resented it.  My father had a habit of surprising us in the morning with the plans for the day, that were not part our plans for the day.  I fussed and fumed.  But I did it.  I often end up telling my children that you have to do many things you don’t like to do but you still just have to do them because somebody has to. 

Days on the tractor are long – they give you a lot of time to think.  That can be both good and bad.

Working on the farm developed many good skills and attitudes.  A good day’s work feels good.  Contributing matters, doing your part is important.  It doesn’t matter if you are a girl or a boy when there is work that needs to be done.  You don’t have to like every job some you just do. Being a responsible part of a family, team or staff is worthwhile.