Farms are Better than Disneyland

Scaling the Matterhorn during a visit to Disneyland in 2015 (Megan-we see you peeking!)

Farms are Better than Disneyland (28 June 2019)

My family moved off the farm in February or March 1993, shortly after I turned 17 years old. Farm life was difficult, the number of helping hands was dwindling as my older brothers graduated and left for college, and it was pretty clear that none of them were planning to return to Idaho to join the farming endeavor. My parents had been seriously discussing the option of moving back to Utah for at least 5 years, and they had sold the cows a couple years earlier as a step in that direction.  After the cows were gone, my dad started looking for other options for revenue and we still had plenty of farm work in caring for the crops of alfalfa, wheat, and barley.

In early 1993, my dad found a job as a counselor in the Utah Employment Office, working ironically in the same department he had worked in 17 years previously before moving to Idaho to farm.  Then my parents went to Utah and purchased a home in the town of Alpine, Utah, which at the time had a population of about 5000 people. That was a big city by our standards and I remember my parents sitting us down to talk about how when we moved to the city, we would have to do things that we’d never had to do before, like locking the doors to our cars and home. Leaving the farm for this big unknown was a bit scary, but to be honest I was excited for the change.

One big advantage of moving to Utah was that it put us much closer to many of my older brothers and their families, resulting in more family activities. As we would gather for these family functions, stories from the past would inevitably be told and we would take a trip down memory lane. I remember finding it kind of funny that sometimes those stories resulted in my mom saying, “I don’t remember that.” And a brother would reply with a smile, “that’s because we never told you!”.

As one of the youngest brothers, I loved being there for these discussions. I think they helped me connect with older brothers that I revere, but that I really did not know very well growing up because of a significant age difference. It was also a matter of irony to me in these discussions that the best stories seemed to come from our worst farm experiences. Those difficult experiences, as they were retold, seemed to take on a new, almost glamorous, life of their own.

I remember many years ago your Aunt Jennifer talking about how glamorous life on ‘the farm’ can seem to those that hear our stories. She told the story of Jacob and Taylor, who at the time were probably preschool age. They were persistently asking her if they could go to Disneyland. They were telling her about all these kids their age that had been to Disneyland. This was perfect justification in their minds that they also should be able to go. Then Aunt Jennifer came back with what she thought was the perfect reply. She told her boys something along these lines. “But your dad is much older than you and he’s never been to Disneyland”.  The twins thought about that for a few seconds and then replied. “No, but Dad grew up on a farm. Farms are better than Disneyland”!

Seeing and petting baby calves during our trip through Nauvoo, Illinois in 2018.

I never went to Disneyland growing up, and I definitely did not believe then that farms were better than Disneyland. But I do remember that when visitors would come, they always seemed excited to learn about farm life. I remember the excitement of my cousins when they got to see a baby calf born when my Uncle Howard and Aunt Janet came to visit with their family. I guess since I was around it all the time the novelty had worn off, but it really is pretty amazing when you think about it. And I think it helps us get back to our roots, a small glimpse of the raw materials that our ancestors had to work with. There was no local fast food joint where they could work to put food on the table, they needed to grow the food, find the food, or extract that food from animals… like cows.

Posing with Olaf during a trip to Disneyland in 2015.

Now the question turns to you… which was better, seeing calves in Nauvoo last summer, or Disneyland in California?  If you’re like me, I am grateful for and have good memories of both of those experiences. More importantly, I am grateful to share those memories with each of you, because I think it would have been pretty lonely to meet Olaf all by myself! Love you all!