Ten-year-old Dean Thompson drives the combine on his family’s farm, with a little help from his dad. Submitted photo
Ten-year-old Dean Thompson drives the combine on his family’s farm, with a little help from his dad. Submitted photo
As the sun dipped low on the horizon on a mid-October day, 10-year-old Dean Thompson had one of the best sunset views in the county, driving a combine through the bean fields on his family’s farm.

In blue jeans, a red T-shirt and gray baseball cap, the Eastern Hancock Elementary fifth-grader deftly steered the combine with a little help from his dad, Blake.

Meanwhile, his mom and little brother and sister were elsewhere on the farm, helping with the harvest.

The Thompsons are just one of the Hancock County families who get the children in on the action when it comes to planting and harvesting crops.

Ashley Thompson said it’s a great way to give children a feel for the farm, which can eventually help them know if they want to go into the family business.

“(Dean has) been learning that and how to run the auger cart and the tillage equipment.,” said Thompson, whose younger son Glen, 9, and daughter Sara, 6, also pitch in at their A&B Thompson Farm.

“They’re still young, but they’re learning,” she said.

Their oldest son started learning how to operate equipment through the local 4-H tractor club when he was 8, and does a lot of mowing each summer. Their middle son is starting 4-H this year, and is already learning how to back up a trailer.

“My daughter is not old enough to do much yet, but she loves being out here with us,” said Thompson, whose daughter was by her side out in the family’s bean fields last week.

Working on the farm “is a good opportunity for them to see if this is something that interests them someday. It may be, it may not, but they’re learning a lot of other things out there too,” Thompson said.

“Sometimes farming can be hard. There’s disappointments and there’s ups and downs, and they’re learning how to navigate that just by being out here with us and seeing that we’re learning from our mistakes too every day. I just think it’s good life lessons for them to learn.”

The kids also tag along with their parents as they run their trucking and excavating business, which focuses on agriculture.

“We’re all out there doing it as a family,” Thompson said.

Start them young

Olivia Dickson, 4-H program assistant at Purdue Extension Hancock County, said getting children involved in their family farms early is a great way to instill a love of agriculture at an early age.

“We are a very agriculturally-based county, and I think it’s a great way for kids to get involved, to see where their food starts and where it ends up,” she said.

Seven-year-old Lewis Rausch and his little brother Roland, age 5, love getting their hands dirty on their family’s property just north of Greenfield, where they grow sweet corn, plus a few pumpkins and sunflowers this year.

They’re looking forward to carving a couple of the pumpkins they grew this fall, and feeding the seeds to the cows on their grandparents’ farm in Carthage.

The brothers helped plant and harvest the corn in the fields around their home, and sold several ears at a roadside stand in their front yard, where they offered free lemonade.

“It’s really important to us to help them understand that it takes a lot of hard work to earn money, whether that’s farming or not. Plus at this age I think they get so excited just engaging with people,” said their mom, Samantha Rausch.

The boys got to help plant the corn this year using a seed spreader their dad Nathan attached to a golf cart.

“Lewis got to drive the golf cart, but his rows were a little squiggly,” said his mom with a smile. “So (his grandpa) Pop ended up helping, and the rows were a little straighter.”

Lewis knows how to change the tires on the golf cart, and is learning how to change the blades on tractors.

He and his brother also remove the rocks from the fields before planting each year.

At a small farm in Morristown, 12-year-old Hallie Farmer rises bright and early each day to check on her family’s assortment of livestock, including a newly born litter of rabbits.

She and her four siblings are hands-on around the farm.

“I really like to do the gardening because we get to grow stuff in the greenhouse, so we can start it a little earlier, and when it comes fair time we can exhibit some of the things that we’ve grown,” said Hallie, who also sells produce with her siblings at a roadside farm stand.

There’s a birdhouse that serves as an honor box, although the family mostly gives extra produce away to family and friends.

“Since we’ve been so blessed, we like to try to bless others with the extras we have,” said Hallie’s dad, Austin Farmer, who homeschools his five children.

Life lessons

Working on the farm is a huge part of their learning experience, said Farmer, whose family raises pigs, chickens, rabbits, dairy goats, dairy sheep and some livestock dogs.

“Hallie and Sadie are more in charge of the farm per se in terms of the day-to-day with animals, because they’re their 4-H projects. They definitely do the bulk of the work, but I’m here to help whenever they need some guidance,” said Farmer, who serves as superintendent of the Hancock County Junior Master Gardener program, which teaches children all about gardening.

His children are very involved in gardening at the family farm.

“They’re all hands on deck, truthfully. They plant, they harvest, they do everything in between,” said Farmer, who said gardening can teach some valuable life lessons.

“The end result of getting tomatoes, cucumbers and whatever else is the exciting part. That’s fulfilling, but the lessons learned along the way — the patience and everything you have to know, and the work you have to put in to get to that finished product — is really what we’re about.”

When their mom Danielle returns home from her job as a physical therapist, “The kids come running in super excited because they picked a watermelon or something. It’s really fun,” Farmer said.

All his kids get in on the action: Hallie, 12; Sadie, 10; Crosby, 8; Avery, 5; and even 2-year-old Demi.

“It’s fun to see her tote around and just look up to her older sisters, because they do so much hands on. It’s good not just for her, but her brother Avery, to see them do those things,” he said.

“Overall there is some hardship that goes with it, like the pests that come in and bugs you have to take care of. Not everything goes right, but at the end of the day it’s fun to see the excitement in their faces about the progress,” he said.

“I think what I enjoy most is probably seeing our work pay off at the fair,” said Hallie, who also loves watching things grow in the family’s garden.

She’s excited to grow plants in the family’s new greenhouse, “because we’ll get to start things a little earlier, and when it comes time we can exhibit some of the things that we’ve grown at the fair.”

She also enjoys selling produce and crafts at her family’s roadside stand.

“Me and my sisters really enjoy going out there and seeing what has sold and whose crafts sold first. It’s fun,” said Hallie, who enjoys making handmade bookmarks with dried petals from flowers grown on the farm.

Money matters

Commerce is a valuable lesson when it comes to learning about agriculture, said Samantha Rausch, whose two sons sell corn from their front yard.

Rausch said the boys don’t get money for doing chores around the house, so selling sweet corn is how they save up for things they want.

“We actually didn’t set out to sell it. We just love to give it away to our customers and family. But we realized it was a good learning opportunity for the boys,” said their dad, who owns a commercial construction business.

The boys are saving up for something big — a “fast” remote control car for Roland, and a deep sea fishing charter for Lewis, who loved his first experience deep sea fishing off Orange Beach.

But first, they know the first step is paying back their dad for the money he invested in seeds and fertilizer for the corn they sell.

After the corn is harvested, they save some of the stalks to create fall decorations to sell. They also sell flowers they grow and place in repurposed salsa jars, with a ribbon tied around each one.

Staying busy around the small farm, in addition to sports, is a much better alternative to playing video games all day, said their mom, although the boys would sometimes disagree.

“I think one of the biggest lessons the boys have learned is that all parents have different rules about how we occupy our free time,” she said.

“My husband and I both grew up with animals — he grew up on a farm — and I think our hope is keeping them physically engaged and learning that it’s hard work to get money, whether it’s through farming or something else, and that they have to save up and work really hard to get all the fun stuff,” said Rausch, who tries to instill in them a good work ethic, and a love for the outdoors.

“Sometimes they ask why other kids get to have video games and those kinds of things, and I tell them, ‘Your games are better. You get to drive golf carts and go-carts,’” she said.
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