By Dorothy (Miller) Hunsley – Mississauga, Ont.
We drove west one summer when our daughter was about three years old. After two days driving to get out of Ontario, the questions came fast and furious from our daughter.
“Are we there yet? Why are we so sure it won’t hit Manitoba? Why is the train going on the grass? I don’t see any tracks,” she’d machine gun them at us.
“What are those big things sticking out of grass?” They were grain elevators. She thought the little oil derricks sticking up were dinosaurs pecking for worms.
A day at a family farm really amused us. According to her there were “hundreds of chickens out there.” She heard a funny laugh, so her country cousins took her to a henhouse and there was a hen laughing. Did we know why? She was hiding an egg under her so the other chickens couldn’t find it.
They told her that those things hanging down on a cow was how you got milk. She said “No way!” She knew you got it in a bottle or else you bought it at a store.
Every time we went over train tracks at home she’d holler “Train tracks!” My dad took us out to the lake over a rough gravel road. She stood up behind her grandfather with her arms around his neck and hollered “Train tracks, Poppa.” I’m sure dad was glad there were only five miles of gravel.
When you’re city raised and don’t know about farms, it can be very confusing. We grew up out west and although we didn’t live on farms, we visited them. At an early age knew all about them. I don’t think we ever questioned where eggs and milk came from.
