Farming the Carpet

In the pencil drawing, the little boy is wearing onesie pajamas, the kind with the long zipper that runs all the way up to the neck that holds his impressionable mind. The boy is sitting on his knees in plush carpet, maybe shag carpet from the 1970s. He’s doing what a lot of us did, “farming the carpet.”

My cousin, Micah Moulin sent me this drawing. He calls his artistic endeavors – Moulin Farm Art. Moulin has been working in an aspect of agriculture his entire life. He started out by his dad’s side in the repair shop, watching and helping him fix tractors and more. He has also been known to help family and friends farm too. He works at Crane Sales and Service amongst a host of other duties.

Micah also draws what he loves – tractors, semi-trucks, and the rural landscapes that shaped him. Once in awhile he will send me a picture of one of his drawings. He recently did with this note, “If you’re ever looking for something to write a story about.” “What do you call this drawing?” I asked.

“‘The Beginning of a Farmer.’ I believe will suffice.” He answered. “I feel this picture very heavily – as you can imagine.”

I can imagine Micah. I had a few of those tractors myself. A lot of us did. Sometimes I was rocking my baby dolls, and sometimes I was “loading” real field corn my dad grew that I popped off the cob into the wagon I pulled around on the driveway and living room carpet. I had a green tractor and a red tractor. The red tractor was from our neighbors, Jane and Virgil Thorne. I received it as a trick-or-treat present one year. We didn’t go trick-or-treating in town. We just went to Jane’s (which was more than enough) because she had plenty of homemade cookies, a bowl of candy, and a real gift. I remember that Halloween gift vividly. Jane was laughing because there was my dad standing there (who drove only John Deere) and she said, “Well, Virgil said Kerry needed an International tractor too.”

I was smiling because I understood the humor of it. Dad didn’t really mind either. I mean Jane made us homemade beef noodles and fried potatoes a lot, so any feud over tractor colors was null and void.

Looking at Micah’s drawing, I thought back to those times when I wore onesie jammies too, with those rubber feet on the bottom that kept you from sliding across the hallway or kitchen floor. But once we grew out of the pajama feet, we didn’t get rid of them. Instead, they cut the feet off so our legs could stretch out and then we wore socks, (which was totally fine), because then we could still slide all around and goof off even more.

I absolutely remember farming the carpet very fondly. While I knew early on that I wanted to be a writer, I also knew early on I loved the countryside. I didn’t have the proclivity to drive a lot of real tractors though. Instead, I enjoyed hanging out with cows in our pasture and playing prairie girl. Up until I was about 12 or so, I also thought I would for sure be an astronaut. When I spent time with dad in the Quonset while he was working on the combine, I was crawling all over it, pretending the cab was my spaceship cockpit with all those buttons ready to send me blasting off the farm.

I know I am talking to a lot of adults now who played farmer, but never got a chance to farm and really wanted to. Micah’s drawing spurred me to not give up on my quest to make things better in the countryside. The toy equipment we played with in sandboxes, on driveways, and on carpet were part of a more innocent time of happiness, dreams, and no agendas. Then, in reality, much of what we were told to do on the farm started to drive people off the farm.

This question dogs me – why are we playing with kids’ minds with dreams most of them in the current state of agriculture will never be able to afford? We can build equipment that brings people back to the farm again. From farming the carpet, to farming real farms – let’s design red and green tractors that do just that.

Hope Stories | Graze Master (grazemastergroup.com)