Farming is one of the earliest known occupations in the world. The lifestyle allows people to be their own boss, make decisions and set their schedules. The air is clean, nature is all around, and there are peaceful, wide-open spaces. Despite having to assume all the risk and responsibility, it is a way of life like no other. My parents always said it was a good life.
It is a unique lifestyle where families live where they work. Agriculture is one of Saskatchewan’s largest and most hazardous industries. Farmyards can be dangerous, but intriguing places for children with an abundance of things to explore and climb on.
Machinery, flowing grain, livestock and chemicals are a part of the business of farming. Farmers are often rushed and have many things on their minds, plus at times, they share their workspace with their children.
At the tender age of two, I was running around our farmyard and the disc was parked nearby. I tripped and fell a few feet from it and my forehead hit one of the disc blades, cutting my head open at the hairline. Kids who grew up on the farm seem to all have stories about the war wounds they received. Not many of us got through those years without being left with a scar or two.
In the summer of 1962, The Hubs was four years old. One afternoon, as farm kids do, he was playing in the farmyard with equipment parked nearby. On that day, he climbed up on the running board of a black 1950s grain truck parked in the yard. To pull himself up onto the truck, he grabbed the side hood vent with his little hand. He had done this before, and once he got on the hood, he would scoot over the roof and jump down to play in the empty truck box.
As luck would have it, he lost his footing with his hand still gripping the vent. He couldn’t hang on, and as his grip gave way, the vent’s sharp edges torn into the flesh of the little finger on his right hand. His finger tore away at the second joint as the weight of his body pulled him to the ground.
His dad, who had been working nearby, came to investigate the commotion and found his little boy standing by the barn sobbing with blood spurting out of his hand onto the barn wall. He picked the severed finger off the ground, tossed it into the pigpen and then carried his son to the house. His mom carefully wrapped a kitchen tea towel around his hand.
If that happened to a child now, the finger would be packed up and taken along to the hospital for possible reattachment. In the early sixties, that wasn't something his dad even thought about at that moment.
His dad was a school bus driver and had to leave to do his daily run, so they called an uncle who lived five miles down the road to come and help. Uncle came and drove The Hubs and his mom to the hospital in Shellbrook, about thirty miles away.
Dr. Jack Spencer was on duty that day and removed the remaining part of the finger and sewed his hand closed at the knuckle.
Incidents like this don’t slow little boys down for long. When he got back home, his older brother was back from school, and before long, they were wrestling and he was hitting him over the head with his bandaged hand.
I wish for all farm families to have a safe spring season. Take care.
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