I’m Harry. I farm near Elk Point — good black soil when it’s treated right, and hard lessons when it isn’t. I’ve got a wife, two young ones underfoot, and a homestead that asks something from me every single day.
Folks think farming is just planting and harvesting. Truth is, it’s a hundred small decisions made before dawn — feed first, water next, fences before they fail, tools before they break, and weather before it surprises you. Some days you win. Some days you just hold the line — and that counts, too.
Responsibilities
A farm looks quiet from the road, but it never truly rests. My day is a chain of chores that can’t be skipped — because livestock don’t “pause,” and weather doesn’t wait for a man to catch up.
- Morning: water, feed, check stock, and put eyes on fences
- Midday: fieldwork, repairs, hauling, and whatever broke without permission
- Evening: milk, secure pens, gather wood, and set things right for tomorrow
- Always: watch the sky — wind, hail, early frost, and summer lightning
Family
I don’t run a “business” out here — I run a home that works. My wife is my partner, not an extra pair of hands. And the children? They learn the rhythm early: chores first, play when the job’s done.
- Wife: keeps the house steady — meals, garden, mending, and accounts
- Children: small chores, big pride — gathering eggs, carrying kindling, minding gates
- Rule of the place: do your share and mind your manners
- Best part: supper together, even if we’re tired clear through
Daily Tools
Tools are money you can hold in your hands. You treat them right, they save you a day. Treat them wrong, they cost you a week — usually right when you can least afford it.
- Field: plow, harrow, cultivator, scythe, sickle
- Wood & repair: maul, saw, hammer, drawknife, nails, rawhide laces
- Care: whetstone, oil, spare rivets, twine, and a patch kit
- Livestock: milk pail, strainer cloth, harness, curry comb
Seasons & Weather
Every season is a different kind of trouble — and a different kind of beauty. A farmer learns to take joy where he can, because the weather’s going to do what it wants anyway.
- Spring: mud, late frost, and planting in a hurry between storms
- Summer: heat, insects, fast-growing weeds, and thunder you can feel in your teeth
- Fall: harvest pressure — days you work until the light quits on you
- Winter: feed, shelter, wind, and keeping stock alive through the worst nights
Neighbors
Out here, “neighbor” doesn’t mean the next house. It means the next person who’ll show up when you’re in trouble — and who you’ll show up for, no matter how tired you are.
- Borrowing and lending tools (and returning them in better shape)
- Barn-raising, threshing help, and storm cleanup
- Trading news: river levels, prices, sickness, who’s passing through town
- Sharing food when a family’s hit hard or the winter runs long
Values
I’m proud of the work because it’s real. You put seed in the ground, you sweat for it, and you pray the hail stays away. When things go wrong, you don’t talk about quitting — you talk about what’s next.
- Responsibility: do what needs doing, even when it’s miserable
- Generosity: a traveler gets a meal if we can spare it
- Steadiness: calm voices around animals — panic makes accidents
- Family first: the farm exists to keep them safe and fed
“Even when life is tough, there’s beauty in the work — and strength in a family that pulls together.”
How my homestead works — all together
When folks pass by, they see a house, a barn, and a few fences and think that’s a farm. But a place like this is more like a living machine — every part has a job, and every job leans on the next.
The corn is our backbone. It feeds us, it feeds stock, and it pays for what we can’t make ourselves. The windmill keeps water moving when the heat is mean and the creek runs low. The barn isn’t just shelter — it’s winter insurance.
Horses do the hauling and the hard pulls when the ground turns heavy. Cows give milk when you treat them right — same time, same hands, clean pails, calm voices. Sheep and beef cattle turn grass into food and trade, and the fences keep that work from walking off on four legs.
