"N2EY" wrote:

Agreed! But there's a difference between doing it
for a summer at a relative's place, and doing it all
year long at various locations all over the country
or all over a region. And there's a difference
between doing it for a relative and doing it for
one's living.


Okay, if you want to make that fine of a distinction, while it is
certainly true I never worked a farm laborer job as my sole income, let me
also add that I did work for other farmers in the area while both a teenager
and young adult, as nothing more than another paid laborer (no family
connections). Many teenagers in the area did it during the summer to earn
extra money and many young adults made a living as farm laborers (I
continued to do it occasionally as a young adult to subsidize my income).

Of course, I just don't see the fine distinction you're suggesting here. A
day, week, or month's work on the farm is a day, week, or month's work on
the farm. If you're doing laborer work, the work doesn't change based on who
you are or where you live other times of the year. If anything, while
working for my grandmother, I felt I had to work harder to earn the other
workers' respect of my worth to get the same pay (and to prove I wasn't just
a city boy). And I continued to work after they went home for the day. Farm
equipment had to be cleaned and put away. Machinery had to be cleaned,
fueled, and oiled for the next days' work. Barns had to be monitored. The
other normal chores around the farm continued. Later, after those laborers
left for the year, fields had to be plowed for next years' crops. For the
farmer, work doesn't end with just pulling the crops out of the fields.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/