My Farm Life Experience

This is a tipical large farm, but even this is a lonely place to live.

The lonely life of the farmers

My farm life as a youth

Welcome to my article (6), my farm life experience

Dear readers, this article is another chapter of my life story, and there will be more articles, as we go on writing them, therefore, let us continue to tell you my life story.

Anyhow, our lives are full of surprises, sometimes those surprises are good and other times they might not be that good, but we must live our lives the best way we can, we must try to adapt whatever happens. This observation has made me think about things that have happened in the past. So, at this very moment, because I am mentally comparing the past with the present, and being June wheat harvest time in Italy, it has come to my mind the wheat harvester machines and other machines that the farmers’ have today. So, I wish we had those machines when I was young, it would have been a lot easier to work the fields and harvest; I know that our small farm could not afford them, but we could have hired one anyhow. I am going to paste a link of those machines that would have made life a lot easier for us, especially the wheat harvester, if they were available when I was young,

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Wheat+Harvesting+Machine&FORM=RESTAB

Anyhow, looking back at my life and what I thought when I was young, I believe that there are times in our lives, when we don’t know whether the way that we are living it, is good or bad for us, but we will discover that life value much later in our lives. Having said that, now let us continue to tell you the story of my life.

Anyhow, from my own point of view, I believe that once you read my farm life story that I am writing here, you are going to agree with me that the way of life that I had, including those other youths, who had to live like me during those old times in the farms, it was a way of life that to most of us today may seem archaic, unreal and unfair, and indeed it was unfair to myself and to all those youths that ended up in a similar position as myself in their small family farms.

But at the time when this happened, it did not seem that bad while we were there, because we were so young when we started to work in the farms, so, we didn’t know about the drawback, because this way of life had been practised from our forebears for many generations before us.

Therefore, nobody knew then of the adverse influence that it would bring to us in the future, as we didn’t know that we were placed in a disadvantaged situation; even our parents did not see how bad the situation could become, because they could not see how fast life was going to change, and even if they did guess that things were going to change, they didn’t know what else to do, since nobody knew in those times anything else, except that they had to follow the previous generations. So, let us talk about this unfair situation that we were in, while working in the farms in those times.

------------------------------------------------

The traditional farm animals

Farm life unfair situation

The farm life unfair situation

Now, this situation that I am talking about was most unfair to the youths working in the farms, because it affected only us, but not all the young citizens of this rural town of Genzano di Lucania, because they would be living a better life in town.

So, as it happened, we a portion of the young citizen of Genzano became caught in a disadvantaged position including myself, and this position would affect us badly for the rest of our lives; but we didn’t know then that it was going to be a disadvantaged position in the future, and we did not know what else to do either, and there was nothing that could be done either. The few exceptions were those youths that their families owned a lot of land. Because it would be an advantage for them to stay in the farms and learn their future trade and then use their farm knowledge in the future to their advantages, in their own family farms, if they had a large enough farm to run.

But for the rest of us young men, who were working in small farms like myself, and did not own enough land to secure a good living in the future, what we were doing then would turn into a disadvantaged position later, but at the same time we had no other opportunities in life but to continue the old tradition of farming; because this same tradition of farming had been a way of life to the rural community of this agricultural town for centuries before us, therefore, when I was young it was thought to be the only way to earn a living, if you happened to own any land at all, you were doing well. So, we had to be trained to be farmers in order to look after our own small farm when we would become older, anyhow, in those times there was not much else that could be done, but this helping in the farm and training to be a farmer, became a great disadvantage, because of the changes that followed.

This way of living that I am talking about here would be better understood, if you read this other article that we have written in Hub Pages, Farming today compared to the old way, in this article we are describing how farming is changed and other ways of life as well.

Anyhow, to be fair, I must add that there were also a few other youths that their families were so poor, but they were working in the farm like us by looking after the farm animals and other small tasks, they had no land at all, so, they worked in the farm to be fed and a few other things, or a small pay, if the farmer could afford that.

Anyhow, nobody can be blamed for putting us youths in such a position, which in the end resulted in a disadvantaged position: because the same way of life had served the same community of farming well for centuries, and those people were not disadvantaged at all. Because in those times, people used to accept life the way it was, if they had enough food on their table every day and a few other things, they were happy. But today because of the enormous change of the modern era, which has brought with it changes in the value of work that any worker does, for this reason we became greatly disadvantaged. But this is not all, because there is more that can be said, about the way we became and the ways that we were treated from the rest of the town community. But I suppose this was my destiny.

-------------------------------

Scroll to Continue

Jacob Tremblay's 2024 Career Retrospect

The Fool Said, "Yup"

The Option — Divisional Round Analysis

My own harsh destiny

Anyhow, I believe that we are born in a family that also decides our destiny, because of the way that family lives, and might have lived for centuries. Some of us believe that we are born with a destiny to fulfil, and if it is so; then my destiny is not a bright one, because from the beginning of my life I have had a hard life and this has continued during my life, perhaps it will still continue until I die; but let us go back to my life story in the farm.

Anyhow, my farm life when I was young, was unfair to me and to those youths that had to live in the farm as I did; this fact of life is the main issue that I want to point out here, to show you how I had to struggle and to suffer while I was living in the farm, and in the future as well, as you will see, from these articles that I am writing. In fact, for me life was going to be much harder than I thought, since that way of life left me so far backward, because of that isolation that existed in the farms, I even lacked in local general knowledge about the people of the town, and also in communication skills including all those nice things that a person says and does, which would make that same person attractive to the rest of the community.

Here I must say that this early disadvantaged way of life, has affected me for the rest of my life, and although I have tried to improve myself during my life, I have never been able to catch up with the rest of the world. So that, I feel it within me even now, as if I will never be completely satisfied with myself, because I think that I could have been better off, if I had a different and better way of life when I was young.

But since what’s been done is done, so, we cannot go back and do it in a different way, I am/was stuck with it. Therefore, I had to put up with my backward way of life; and I had to accept that the only possible way that was left for me to earn a living for the rest of my life, had to be that I had to do hard physical work, which I did; and this hard work has helped me to overcome some of my drawbacks. From this life experience we could say that we should always try to improve ourselves and work hard for it, even when it is hard for us to find an easy way of life, if we are able to keep this attitude and work hard during our lives, we can overcome many issues that could otherwise run us down completely.

Anyhow, when this hard and boring life was happening to me and those young people that were doing this same work as I did, it all seemed normal, because our forebears before us did that, and lived this same way for centuries before us.

Anyhow, the most important years of my young life, was spent in the farm, this was no good, because a youth would be better off to stay in a society and learn the ways of that society, and try to find out the meanings of life, which would help him to learn how to deal with his life in the future in the society that we would be living in; anyhow, those years were spent to live in our family farm and not in the town itself, and this did put me in a disadvantaged position from the start; because everything in the world was changing too fast and farming the old way was on the way out.

------------------------------

Conpulsory service in the army

Breaking away from my farm life

For about twelve years I lived this farm life. The only time that I had a break from farming was when I was called to go in the army, which in Italy was a compulsory service to the country, which every able young male must serve when one turns twenty-one years old or soon after that. Then when the army released me, I migrated to Australia. I was then in my early twenties. I was young and not afraid to do hard work, since I had learned in the farm that we needed to work hard to earn our living.

But let me say a few words about the Italian army, being in the compulsory Italian army is a hard life for anybody, because you are not paid, or you are paid so little that you believe that you are not paid; and then everybody laments about everything especially about the discipline, as for myself I did not find it hard, but you must do what you are told to do, at the same time you learn something new because you are exposed to a different way of living. But the hardest part of it all is that the compulsory army of those times, they did not pay us, we only got free food free clothes. Anyhow, in the army you learn a new way of life, it makes you feel better when that is over and done with. Old people think that after you have been in the army, you have become a man of the world, because of that extra experience that you learn in the army.

But, let me go back to tell you about my life in the farm and what it did to me. Because the farm life of those times was not what one would prescribe for a young man like me, if one wanted me as a young man to develop my potential, so that, I could be ready to meet the challenge of life when I would be older, in all communities not just farming a small farm.

But you see, at the time when this happened to me, no one could think of the forth coming changing world, because the way of life happened to change so much and so fast, when we were growing up.

Now, to understand how unfair it was, I have to convey to you the different set up of this town of Genzano; the way that people separate each other in classes, not because they like to be different to each other, but because they are different, therefore, they think and talk in different ways, so, they group themselves with their equals, because they feel more at ease that way: But in reality they are all equal, because all the groups need each to live well.

I believe that this way of life happens everywhere else in the world, in towns where there are two main groups of people in the community: There are those who live directly from the land, which are called the rural community, and those who work in town, which would be called town’s people and they include; shop keepers, doctors, vets, craftsmen, clerks, schools and school teachers, priests, policemen, (carabinieri which are Italian policemen), guardians, and every other sort of jobs that one can think of, in order to run a town properly; and then all the rest of the population, like whole families and women and children, so, a town can be self-reliant.

Anyhow, at a certain stage of my life I become aware that I had to break away from farming, because a lot of things were changing and we didn’t earn enough from the small farm that we had, so, it was time for us young farmers to change, and I did.

Anyhow, in my next article, let me continue to talk about my farm life views, and the town I came from, followed by several other articles about my farm life, and the town of Genzano and its communities, to explain better how those times were, in the fifties and earlier; not only because I want to tell you my life story, but because a record is being written and kept, in these internet articles that could be available to the public for a long time in the future.

So, see you next time in my next article, my farm life views.

---------------------------------

Links to other life story articles

• Australian houses in Brisbane
  Houses in Brisbane, The Queenslander house White ant problem Houses on stumps
• House brick base continues
  DIYbrickwork, will show you how a brick base is built step by step by professional bricklayers, in the hope that this article may help some one that is interested in doing some brickwork themselves...
• Farming today compared to the old way
  Mankind should look at the progress they have achieved in agriculture in the last hundred years or so, we should compare how hard it was to harvest wheat or any other cereals by hand to today ways of using these wonderful machines. We should also see
• DIY brickwork
  Thinking of laying the bricks yourself, then read this hub, it may be very helpful to know some details; DIY brickwork, or Building a brick base for houses; in this hub we will talk about; Getting ready to lay bricks; making sure that we start the br
• My life my struggles
  This hub is being written to tell you part of my life journey, as we all know there are a lot of times when during our lives we have to struggle, so this hub is telling you about my life struggles.
• Comune di Genzano di Lucania - Home Page
  Comune di Genzano di Lucania
• Genzano di Lucania - YouTube
  "...per tutti quelli che...Genzano.."
• Genzano it story
  This is a blog about the town of Genzano plus other stories
• Australia affordable houses
  Building houses to sell is usually good business, when they sell easily, but when they don't sell the builders should really watch what they are doing, because they may need to sell their houses at cost and sometime below cost. Therefore for the buye

© 2011 F-Menchise