The Rural Voice, 1992-02, Page 10FARM
SAFETY
FACTS
FROM THE
WEST WAWANOSH
MUTUAL INSURANCE
COMPANY
CHIMNEYS
CAN
CATCH
FINE
SAFETY TIPS:
* Check pipes and chimneys
once every 30 days and clean
if necessary.
* Flue gases of 350° F or more
provide a good draw and
minimal creosote build-up.
* Clean chimneys with the
appropriate type of brush
approved for your chimney.
When you need Insurance call:
Frank Foran
R.R. 2, Lucknow 528-3824
Lyons & Mulhern
46 West St., Goderich 524-2664
Kenneth B. MacLean
R.R. 2, Paisley 368-7537
John Nixon
R.R. 5, Brussels 887-9417
Donald R. Simpson
R.R. 3, Ripley 395-5362
Delmar Sproul
R.R. 3, Auburn 529-7273
Laurie Campbell
Brussels 887-9051
Slade Insurance Brokers Inc.
Kincardine 396-9513
Owen Sound 376-1774
West Wawanosh
Mutual Insurance
Dungannon
Ont. NOM 1R0
519-529-7922 CO
6 THE RURAL VOICE
IGNORE URBAN GLITZ
-
RURAL LIFE HAS ITS PERKS
Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher
and playwright who lives near Blyth,
is the originator and publisher of The
Rural Voice.
Farming is a business and shouldn't be
regarded as a way of life, I've been hearing
people say at farm meetings for 20 years.
Probably these hard-headed speakers are right,
but if one only looked at the dollars and cents
of farming, how much food would get pro-
duced in this country?
I got to thinking about the non -business
aspect of farming while sitting at a dairy day
meeting recently and hearing a speaker who
wanted to remind farmers not just about the
business aspect of their lives, but about the
family aspect of their lives. Farming, he was
telling them, was still one of the best ways of
living.
His talk came at a time when I was having
some trouble in my own home life and I
couldn't help thinking how things might have
been different if I had been able
to provide the same kind of
home life my parents had pro-
vided for me back on the farm. I
was having problems with my
teenaged son and was spending a
lot of time re-examining what in
our life might have helped cause
those problems. If, I thought, I
had been able to work more with
my son, some of these problems
might have been headed off. He
was the kind of kid who liked to
be with other people a lot and if
he had been the son of one of my neighbours,
and been helping around the barn or fixing
tractors with his dad, maybe things would have
been different. But my job calls for me to
work away from the house most of the time
and even if I am working at home, it's hard to
share writing.
Now I know lots of farm families have
communication troubles too, but the fact that
farm families can live and work together is a
huge asset that will never show up on the bal-
ance sheet. I know, too, that the kind of farm
life I enjoyed when I was growing up is be-
coming a rare thing. To make ends meet with
today's high costs and depressed prices, not
only are many farm wives working out of the
home, but many husbands also have off -farm
jobs and are trying to farm in the few hours
they get at home. Stress can run high. Child-
ren can feel short-changed. Marriages can
break down.
My hope for the next few years would be
that somehow costs and prices will get back
into a proper ratio enough for farm families to
recapture the quality of life that goes with their
lifestyles. My hope would also be that people
realize and value that lifestyle, because I think
sometimes they have undervalued it.
Looking back, particularly to the early
'80s, I think many farm families felt they had
to live a lifestyle like their urban neighbours.
Young farm families in particular were asking
why they shouldn't be entitled to the new cars,
the modem kitchens and appliances, the vaca-
tions that their urban brothers and sisters were
enjoying. In a fair world, they were right, of
course. In carrying out the single most impor-
tant job in the nation, they deserved to be re-
warded at least as well as the Ontario Hydro
lineman or the truck driver, but the world isn't
fair. Already borrowing money for their farm
operations, a few families decided to sneak in
a few perks for the house as well on the credit
line. It only helped get them deeper in debt, of
course.
Farmers shouldn't have to choose between
comforts urban people take for
granted and their unique rural life-
style, but if they do, I wish more
of them could ignore the glitz of
the latest gadgets and realize what
a treasure they have in the way
they can live and work together.
Some do. I interviewed a couple
last year who realized how impor-
tant quality family life was to
them. They have set up their
farming operation to provide as
good a lifestyle as possible. Al-
though the wife is a Registered
Nursing Assistant, she has chosen to stay
home with her young family. She likes to sew
and makes most of their clothes. They keep a
small flock of chickens and grow a large gar-
den. The husband was developing a small
pan -time business that he could work on at
home to try to increase their income from
farming.
The couple figure the non-cash income
they generate through their self-sufficiency is
worth $10,000 a year. They figure a dollar
saved is worth three dollars earned because of
savings in taxes and work expenses. The
couple live well. They aren't back-to-the-
landers living in a shack but live in a nicely
kept fine stone farmhouse, with a recent model
mini -van parked outside.
Their lifestyle is not for everyone. Many
women today will want to keep a career out of
the home. Many people don't want gardens
and home sewing. But they have recognized
just how important family life is to them, and
how they can't buy a better family life they
way they can buy Florida vacations and satel-
lite dishes. More farmers should look at what
they really want out of life and decide what
they must do to get what's most important to
them.0