The New American Farmer?
A farmer friend of mine sent me the attached photo of him and his daughter riding the combine together.
After seeing the photo, it brought back many fond memories of growing up on a farm that most non-farm children never get to enjoy such as:
- As a little boy, riding on the combine, Caterpillar D-4 and D-5 tractor, the old International and GMC 2 1/2 ton trucks with my father. I think he had the patience of Job since I am not sure if I could have spent as much time with my four boys as my dad spent with me as a child.
- Running behind the drills during fall or spring planting with an empty coffee can to make sure that none of the drill cups would be out of grain. I can tell you that my dad drove the drills almost faster than I could run.
- Operating the combine and having it suddenly stop and going out on the catwalk and finding flames shooting out of the battery and down into the wheat field. My dad had overhauled the engine that winter and when putting the engine back in the mounts, the cable to the battery got pinched and suddenly shorted out. The only thing saving the field from burning up was my dad decided to drive up with the pickup at that exact moment and I got the shovel and put out the fire.
- Having a hired man drive our truck down our steep hill and lose control. He jumped out of the truck and broke his leg, however, that was lucky since the truck ended up buried in a hillside and the grain bed sheared off the cab.
- Sliding a combine down a hill with my dad driving and not having it tip over (at least not that time).
- Going to the elevator and watching the truck dump the grain as it was raised up in the air. As I got older, the elevator operators would allow me to run the scale (the start of my accounting career).
As you can see, these are just some of my “fond” memories of growing up on a farm. There are many others that might not be so fond such as playing king of the mountain on a set of grain drills with my siblings (I can tell you that the drill is the king and I got to spend some time in the hospital). There is a saying that a cat has 9 lives, but I think a farm boy has at least 99 lives and I lived most of them as a child.
Now this has nothing to do with farm taxes, business or accounting, but when I saw the photo, I just had to write a post about how the “new” American farmer is not too much different from the old one (at least when it comes to spending time with their kids). Keep it up.
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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