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Tractors, peanuts and south Georgia living
Our swimming pool was the pond in the front yard and the cow trough in the back. Daddy called us "Cottontop" and "Catfish." Mine came from the white blonde of my usually untamed hair, my sister's from her tendency to swim the bottom of the pool and stay under much longer than you would think a four-year-old could manage. We grew up with horses overlooking the fence into the backyard, a threewheeler riding through the back fields was our "joy ride" and nothing was better than playing in the mud puddles of our dirt drive. We rode alongside Daddy and Pop on the fenders of those open cab tractors as they moved from field to field. Mama helped us pick blackberries from fence lines as Daddy called it an afternoon under that scorching Georgia sun. Farming was just a part of who we were and where we were raised, and it's a part of both of us, that we can never, and would never want to, escape. The grit, determination and dedication we saw on the faces of our father and grandfather taught us the most basic lesson of life, work hard and the rest will come together. Farming was never an easy business and we saw the struggles and triumphs as we grew up in the midst of Early County's agriculture. We never hurt for anything, even when the farm was hurting, something that my Daddy, like all other daddies, made sure of. Family was as big of a part of our farm raising as the actual farming. Many days were spent shelling peas with Meme under the hot tin carport in back of the house. There we learned that Zipperers were the best kind of peas, they were the easiest to shell with small, not so nimble, fingers. Our farm beginnings carried their share of lessons. My parents and family emphasized the importance of education, being open minded, finding yourself and sticking with what you know to be right and true. Our farm raisings empowered both my sister and me to take on challenges in-step and to set high goals for ourselves. My sister and I have spread our wings and made it off to college, but neither of us are getting too far away from our farm raisings. My friends in Athens often had me tell stories of my small-town life and adventures on the farm. When I finished at UGA, I moved right back home, a move that puzzled my friends - mostly from the Atlanta area - who couldn't understand why you would move back to a small town in southwest Georgia after getting out and living the city life in Athens. I told them that it's in my blood, this is where my family is and has been, and it's where I want to be as well. They, on the other hand, are finding ways to move out to the big cities of the north and west, with big ambitions of making millions in the corporate and creative world. My sister, while at Georgia Southwestern, still finds time to run the tractor back and forth down the road and through the fields with Daddy on her breaks. She still gets down in the dirt right alongside him whether it's working the fields or the backyard. She was always a bit more ambitious than me when it came to getting hands on with the outdoors and you can see the hard soles of her feet that still don't like to wear shoes regardless of the weather. Farmers like my father and grandfather are all around us here in this corner of the state and across the nation. They work hard because they have to, but also because farming is what they love, regardless of how good or bad the year turns out. Farmers have shaped the values and traditions of this county and many like it for generations. Many say the family farm's steady decrease as corporate agriculture takes over will change the face of this nation. I find that hard to believe, because while the family farms may be smaller and fewer between, the families behind those farms are still here and still raising new generations who will love the traditions, challenges and rewards of farming. It's those families that make farming legendary. It is the generations of family farming that create the farm girls that my sister and I turned out to be, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Another farm girl, one from Baker county who's making her own way in Nashville, sings that some folks "make fun of the map dot where I come from, where the dirt roads and the creeks run, and time barely moves" and they do, but it's because they don't know and understand what we in Early County have been ingrained with since day one. My sister and I still breathe in deep when we drive past those fields covered by a peanut dust haze. Both of us would give our right arms for fresh boiled peanuts and raw vegetables with homemade ranch dressing for an afternoon snack.
There are some things that are inescapable in life, one of those, thank God, is being raised a farm girl.
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