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Show The richest people in the world live on small family farms ff Columnly spcahing By DONETA GATHERUM " on our,' "to do" list again next spring, -We won't put our farming pay in bank. It is not tangible. Our gain is subtle. It is a delicious apple, a f fourth crop of hay, an ear of com feat bends the entire stock over, a perfect tomato, It is the saUsfactioh you get because you know you bet against the odds and then worked hard enough to turn the odds in your favor. You are reaping a harvest in-spite in-spite of wet weather, dry weather, wind, hail, weevils, tomato worms, loose animals, smut, heat, and cold, there is always a harvest. : Yesterday, I finished picking the apples. After sorting them according accor-ding to size and quality, I put them down in the root cellar. They will be eaten daily until early March. When frost comes, I'll bring up a few Rhode Island greenlings and baktt atappldessert. It will taste-good taste-good with baking powder biscuits and homemade soup. We'll eat the baked apples until it is disgraceful, ' and then we'll talk about how good they tasted and how glad we are that we have a wonderful, old apple tree that produces abundantly. ,;Tpdy,XK$nioyedvAe,.,fale4 flowering plants from the front yard. I fed them to the goats. You recycle all organic material on a famu Our cosmos grew over six feet tall because of the chicken ma- mire I applied to the flower bed last ' '. spring. Tomorrow, we'll grease the farm machinery and put it in the shed for winter. My son will count the time it takes his dad to back the hay swather into place. "It lasted one more year," my husband will say. "Putting machinery away is sad. There will be a time when I won't be getting it out in the spring.' ' One tractor will be filled with antifreeze an-tifreeze and equipped with the scraper that doubles as a snow plow. In - the late - afternoon, we1!! " replace the strip of roofing paper that the,wind blew off the barn last . week. ' ," .'... ir Our fall work is complete except for the fencing. If there; is time, we'll get them into shape. This is a rationalization. There will never be enough ume to repair all pur fences. We'll leave" the green tomatoes . on me Vme lirttil the evenfag 'of the first frost. The geraniums and the cactuses iwill remain outside until lit is necessary to bring them inside. ".Why do you save "the geraniums?" my daughter will ask. "Just go buy more next spring." .There is no logic in,, keeping geraniums and cactuses over the winter. It's something I've always done. I'm the mom. I don't need a good reason for what I do. Our October work isn't urgent like hay time or irrigation day. Harvest is a reward. We work slowly slow-ly m Jwe season is six months away. Only . memories of past harvests, bottled frnits,amsrjeUierand a cellar full - of apples will last us through the winter. I'll stretch my work over as many days as I can. I'm one of the richest people in the world. I live on a small, family farm. I'm one of the richest people in the worlaVMive on a small, family farm. Each October I am reminded of the wealth I have as we work to gather the last of the harvest and prepare for winter. . 4 . It's impossible to explain the rewards of farm life to a non-farmer. non-farmer. This is an encompassing lifestyle. Farming is not an occupation. occupa-tion. October is our pay. In March, we started working for October by planning our strategy and then working to achieve many goals. We sprayed the ditches, plowed the field that was full of morning glory, ptuned trees and planted crops. Our resolution to remove all the renegade ren-egade Russian olive trees from the pasture and to kill at least twelve chicory plants per day was lost as we completed the totally necessary chores of farming. Maybe we'll have a mild winter and we can pull out the Russian olives. Maybe a rare plague will winter kill the chicory. If not; we'll put these items |