Farm and Ranch boys?

I get asked a lot were I learned to do so many things... don't claim to be great at any of it--- but welding, wiring, plumbing, mechanics, fabricating, roadside repair, etc. I learned all of it growing up on a farm in Kansas. On a farm or ranch you learn to do anything that comes along mostly because you need to save the money or nobody is around to do it. How many HAMBer's got their start working on a farm or ranch?
Rodshop

 

I did to a certain extent.

 

Grew up on a small farm. Dad got me stick welding at 12, driving tractors in the field about the same time. He taught me alot about everything on the farm. Can pretty much do whatever needs done around the house. The wife thinks im a genius, no, im just a farm boy from Iowa.

 

I have yet to build a car but I do all my own mechanic work. I can weld because when I was a kid I worked for a farmer that was a mechanical genius, in a Rube Goldberg sort of way.

He had (road) graders, scrapers, a small drag line, harvesters and pre WWII Caterpillar tractors, I don't remember how many, but at least 5. One winter he bought a lathe from the railroad (they used for turning box car wheels) and a shaper. We took all the track cleats, links, pins, sprockets, rollers and idlers and hard faced them with a stick welder, then turned (actually ground) everything round on the lathe then ran everything flat through the shaper.

Anytime anything broke, we fixed it. I've worked on final drives, transmissions, clutches, heads, pony starter motors, you name it on pre-war Caterpillar tractors.

We used 3/4 drive sockets, 6ft cheater bars. Everyting was heavy duty, even the pans are cast iron.

I think hot rodding was born on the farm and I also think MIG and TIG welders have been the main reason for so many hot rods on the road today...

 

Great story! That is exactly the kind of experiences that I had with my grandfathers and dad. My brothers and I spent many hours replacing shafts, bearings, seals, or welding whatever on old Massey Ferguson combines. Laid the basis for having the drive to put together an old hot rod.
Rodshop

 

I grew up working on farms during school breaks and holidays,then worked full time on a farm for a couple of years after I left school.The farmers up in northern England are very thrifty,you had to be a jack of all trades,and be able to fix and repair any of the farm equipment you operated.I think farmwork is excellent schooling for youngsters to gain some common sense.

 

Iowa farm boy........Grew up with a different set of values, i.e., family, respect for elders (a wooden spoon on the back of my head for "sassing"), self-sufficiency, mechanical aptitude, and good work ethic were only a few of the things that were part of my upbringing. Rough at times, but wouldn't change a thing on a second go-round.

 

I started out at the funny farm.

 

started out and still doing it that way. I was raised on a farm and have always worked on a farm. I weld and fabricate for a living, but still manage our 3 family farms. We have anywhere between 300-500 head of cattle at a time, and i raise working mules and mammoth jacks. I am 30 years old and by no means remember what most old timers call the good old days, but i feel by maintaining the lifestyle my wife and i choose it somehow helps me stay grounded. We are getting ready to have our first kid, next week, and i couldnt imagine raising her anywhere else. What i have noticed, is that by being raised that way, i feel comfortable in most situations, i.e. broken down, busted or stranded. MOST farmers are the smartest most innovative people i know and i wouldnt take anything for the knowledge i got from them. Farming is dying, it is hard to make it, and that makes me work harder, i love a challenge.
farming and raising your own food is the best way to fight the system, assuming you think the system is broke.

 

I grew up on a farm in Eastern Oregon. I agree with you, it pretty much teaches you to improvise and fabricate when something breaks. I learned to weld when I was in grade school. Since there was nothing to do in the winters, my brothers and I just wrenched on cars. When I was in grade school I used to ride with one of my brothers in their cars. 392 hemi powered Model A, or 427 powered 57 sedan delivery. Farming and hot rodding went hand in hand in the little town I grew up in.

Chopt 34

 

I'm another Kansas farm boy. Makes me feel guilty I'm not farming now for our kids but I'm working on teaching other ways.

 

grew up around the farm both grand parents were farmers and my dad was in the irrigation business and I worked for him till my mid 20's and then went on to wok on a 26,000 acre ranch in western nebraska where I lived 30 miles from town and we had to fix everything ourselves, You have to be kind of creative.

 

grew up raisin cotton ,soybeans and hay same as everyone else
still farming on a smaller scale

 

I got my start in Kansas. I was born there. Atchison that is...

 

I grew up farming. Learning how to drive the old Case when I could reach the pedals. Learning to drive the 42 dodge truck while my grandpa threw hay off the back for the cattle. at one time we had 400+ head. All self sufficient, grew our own feed and handled everything ourselves.

 

It's amazing ,when I was young I couldn't wait to leave the farm ,now I can't wait to get back.
When I graduated from 8th grade I recieved my first store bought shirt. I had worn nothing but Bibs and homemade shirts tru the eight grade and was thrilled for that pair of blue jeans and a store bought shirt.
I didn't attend high school and ended up going south and helping on the wheat harvest, ended up that fall in Montana . It was hard to get a job because I wasn't old enough to get a drivers license.
I know the city folks won't believe this but my brother and I have a bunch of chickens ,And the eggs and the chicken taste so much better that the stuff at the store. Last year we put up 400 + lbs of potatoes and a pickup load of sweet corn and veggies.
Hell we don't even lock the garage.
I think we were born knowing how to weld and keep things running. My brother just bought a Cockshutt 30 that hadn't run for several years ,it is so basic it scares you.
Love them Corn fed girls also.

 

My high school ag teacher died recently. Told him many times that out of all my formal education he taught me more useful things than any other teacher/professor etc. How to weld, do electrical, etc.
When I was 20 I couldn't wait to get away. I did, returned when I was 40, 19 years later I'm still happy to be living 3 miles down a dirt road raising cattle and building hot rods.

 

I was raised on a farm. While I wouldn't want to do it for a living now, I'm glad I was raised the way I was.
Larry T

 

grew up in an orchard with super conservative parents...if you couldn't fix it ,it didn't get fixed....i'm glad cuz in this disposible world i value everything i own/build....hell i even value others "trash/treasure"

 

Fewer family farms, less common sense, a conincidence? I don't think so.

 

Iowa city boy, myself. (Well, outskirts, anyway.) Mom did have a few goats and chickens, so I know a little bit about this subject.

There is one thing that I do ask any new guy coming in to the place I work. (Industrial Maintenance) I ask them if they're a farm kid or city kid. If they're a farm kid, I don't have to teach them squat, where a city kid needs to be shown just about everything.

Roger

 

Kansas boy, still live on a small farm 12 acres but it's mine none the less.

 

Guilty and proud of it.

 

The part of the world I am from there were no farms just ranches. It took a section of land to run 6 head of cows. Oilfield was the main source of education for me but I would day work on the ranches when I wasn't old enough to work in the oilfield. I agree that if it got fixed you did it yourself. Everyone knew how to weld and do some kind of mechanic work. TP

 

small cattle farm my whole life , I got a FFA welding degree !

 

I learned my first vehicle/equipment maintenance, repairs, as a kid in southern Illinois farm country. My dad had an orchard, worked as a machinist on second shift. The orchard business led to selling pruning equipment, air sprayers, specialty mowers, some custom fabbed vineyard equipment.
Never detassled corn, that's around the end of May, strawberry season. Picked many strawberries, peaches, apples, plums, grapes.
In some respects, I wish I could carry on the family tradition. I went to the military for an education, then to the truck parts business for a living. Missin' the fresh country eggs, country butcher shop sausage, fried taters, fresh pickin's from the garden. Cumberland County.

 

Aye, and built my first car when I was 15. Was driving tractor at age 6 and welding around 7 or 8.

 

Count me in as well. Grew up on the worst rock pile dairy farm on a steep hillside in the poverty most county in the Missouri Ozarks. Learned how to drive on a Ford 8N tractor. Luckily we had FFA and Vo-Ag where I had access to a shop with some tools. Learned the basics. Now, many years later I live on the Kansas Prairie and I'm still no mechanic but I know how to work hard.

 

Anybody else take VoAg in high school? (Vocational Agriculture). I took it two years so I could learn more about welding. I had learned to stick weld on the farm and learned some more in VoAg. Also learned how to judge a good egg (LITERALLY!) but usually a farm background is a good start
Pulled several engines from the wood rafters in the tin shop. Dad served as the timing light- we would take it to town to borrow our cousins timing light, but Dad always had it spot on.
Rodshop

 

Kids that grew up on farms and in the country learning how to hunt, trap, and fish don't end up robbing little old ladies