My book signing went well at the Gorham Free Library Yesterday. There were 17 people in attendance as I relived what it was like to have grown up on a family farm out in Ohio (click here). Many who attended had either grown up on family farms or are still actively engaged in agriculture.
I spoke with a man who had to round up the cows in the pasture for milking just like I used to do when I was a boy. Or the man who bought some chickens which turned out to be roosters, and they can be mighty mean to a young boy coming into their coop! Another man asked if the cows on our family farm were serviced with a bull. And yes, we had a bull but now the technology has far surpassed anything that I have experienced. He was a Cornell graduate and through diet, genetic DNA matching, and artificial insemination, milk production has increased ten fold. I met another man who is a member of the Bloomfield Rotary and he invited me to speak at one of their meetings.
One lady asked everyone if there was just one word which would best describe the experience of growing up on a farm, what would it be? Some of the words that were expressed: community, work, family, church, and freedom.
James R. Bupp