When the shelter-in-place order was announced back in mid-March and the kids were ordered to stay home from school, my husband wisecracked, “If only it was April.” So basically, this is all his fault.
I kid! But his point was well-taken: Spring was prime time to have our three kids (ages 17, 15 and 12) home from school. As it turned out, they were home well into April … and May … and June.
That means they experienced some real disappointments — think prom, state FFA band and choir, FFA Washington Leadership Conference, cattle shows and more.
But they weren’t bored either. Nathan planted almost a thousand acres of beans. He sidedressed. He learned to soil test. Jenna ran errands and worked cows and made dozens of gallons of ice cream for her business. Caroline painted the machine shed, worked cows and filled in all over. They drove trucks and tractors and worked. A lot.
Just like every other farm kid in Illinois.
Friends, this is such a unique situation, on every level. We’re in a shutdown caused by a global pandemic, during the busiest season on the farm, where farm kids did what was absolutely not normal for every other quarantined kid in America: They went to work with their families.
We want to tell their story.
Will you help us? Write to me and tell me what your kids did this spring and summer. Share pictures. Have the kids write, if they’d like to. Or put it in a video and tell me your story that way!
Got pictures of them in the field? Running seed around? Building fence? Showing livestock in a virtual show? Keeping the livestock alive while everyone else planted?
Whatever they did, we want to hear about it!
We are all ears, and we’ll feature these stories, photos and videos throughout the summer and in our August issue.
Send your stories to holly.spangler@farmprogress.com by Monday, July 13.