Memory Mondays: Living on the Farm

2007 Photo: Just outside Warsaw, NY in the fall

I recently received my long form birth certificate in the mail.  Aside from my slight disappointment in finding nothing surprising or new in the form (what did I expect?), which is actually a very good thing - the record starts out as a good segue into Memory Monday, a weekly blog post where I aim to bring up memories of my own or of a family member.  Today, I thought I'd go with a few bits of childhood memories of living on the farm.

Up until I was five years old, my parents, my older brother, and I lived in Wyoming County of western New York.  For the first year of my life, that was in a small house in the village of Warsaw.  After that, we moved to a farm on Dillon Road just a few miles northeast in Pavilion, NY.

My older brother and me (I look cranky) on the farm

On the farm, we had a little house on the edge of the road, with several acres of land.  We had some crops - my dad had a tractor he'd use to plow the land.  We had a barn with a silo next to it, lined with a fence.  Within the borders of the fence, we had several bulls and cows that were notorious for jumping the fence and getting loose.  My parents would then have to head out and round up the cattle.  Once one of the calves must have been feeling ill, and I vividly recall the calf was sitting in the house with some hay strewn about.  How many folks can say they had a cow living in their house?   My mom gave them some creatively morbid names such as Hamburger Patty, Big Mac, Angus (Gus), and Sir Loin.  They were ultimately sold for meat, poor things.

In the barn (no longer standing, sadly), we had some chickens.  There was a bottom level of the barn, but there was a ladder that led up to the top level.  I remember at some point in time, I was up at the top of the barn with my brother.  The radio was on, specifically playing the song "Flashdance" by Irene Cara (check out the official music video on YouTube!).  It's funny how songs can stick with your memories so intensely.  My brother would take pleasure in jumping off the top level of the barn onto a big stack of hay outside.

We also had some pigs on the farm, and I must say, I have a lingering mild dislike of pigs.  I had a little plastic pool filled with water, and at one time, the pigs decided to use the pool for some unsanitary business.  I couldn't use the pool anymore, thus a part of my childhood was somewhat ruined... by pigs.  Perhaps their escapades have influenced my love for BBQ pulled pork.  Bacon tastes pretty good, too.  Enough of that disturbing rant.


2007 Photo: Of the farm where we lived from 1980-1984


Onto a more pleasant thought, my dad would sometimes take the tractor into town.  There was a frequently occurring auction in town, and I suspect my parents got some good stuff at those auctions.  I remember sitting in my dad's lap taking one of those tractor trips down the hill into Pavilion.  It's a simple but happy memory!

The farm holds plenty of good memories for me.