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Charlie
“I grew up on this wheat farm. After high school, I joined the Marine Corp. After 4 years I decided to get out and go to school. I did my pre-recs for the civil engineering program in Wisconsin. After a couple of years, Wisconsin didn’t work out real well so I came on home, which I said I would never do. I worked in construction for a while. Then the hired man my Dad had at that time wasn’t working out so he asked if I could help out on the farm. I was never going to work on the farm but I found that this is what I like…
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Aunt Happy
“Many of my childhood memories are connected to spending time on either the Kubik or Haight grandparents’ family farms. When my Grandfather Lyman Haight retired, we moved out to the farm in the Carico Hills near Ritzville, Washington. The first purchase my father made was of a pregnant mare with a colt at side for my elder sister and me. We trained that mare and her colts and spent much of our time riding. We were quickly involved in a 4-H Horse Club and then the Ritzville 4-H Livestock club. My first livestock project was a shorthorn steer that I raised and sold on my birthday at the Spokane Junior…
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dale the pig
“Dale doesn’t like to be on slippery concrete. He’s different than any other pig I have had. I have been showing pigs for 5 years, my family raises pigs. I have a brother and sister who also show pigs. My grandparents raised pigs so I have been around them all my life. I really like showing pigs, but Dale is just different. He is amazing in the ring but he just doesn’t like to come back out to his pen. The first day I got here, he was walking to the scale and he fell because it was wet. He kept falling and I was afraid he was going to…
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kerry
“I raised pigs when I was a kid and now I am raising them along with my kids who take them to the fair. I am also the Pig 4-H leader. Right now I have three sows and too many piglets to count. I do sell the piglets, some for 4-H and some to people who raise them for the meat. But it’s the farrowing that I love. I don’t think people realize how smart pigs are. They are fairly easy for the kids to train. Pigs are also clean animals, they have a specific place in their pen that they poop and if they have room it will be…
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Sruthie
“I always had a special love for animals and I’ve always wanted to work with animals. I didn’t get a passion for veterinary medicine until I read my mom’s James Herriot books. Once I read those books, I really understood the animal and human bond. I wanted to not only help animals but help the people who had a bond with their animals. I grew up in a small town of about 3,000 people in Texas, everybody knew everybody. I went into a vet clinic to work the summer before eighth grade. The vet took one look at me and said, “you’re too young, come back next year.” So I…
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Trudy Schetter
“I am 18 years old and I came here from Canada to work the potato harvest. When it’s not harvest time I work in the houses, taking turns to cook. When you turn 17, we can have a cook week and a baking week. We rotate the cooking job so we cook every 8 weeks. Other than that we also have a feedlot, so we bring the cow’s home. In the fall we preg check cows and in the spring we do the branding. During our hay harvest, some of the girls drive balers and some drive swathers. When a colony gets too big it splits. Ours just split at…
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Tom Gross
“I am working harvest right now, but most the time I am the colonies plumber and all around handyman. I also do framework for the houses and work on the appliances in the kitchen. Self-taught of course. Hands on experience. But when it’s harvest time, I am in the truck and the combine.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony
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Teresa Gross
“A long time ago they used to have Hutterian colonies of 400 people and they were self-sufficient. Now we are only 130 and it still works for us. Hutterites originate from Austria and Southern Germany. The Austrian/German dialect we speak is more High German now. People always ask, how you tell if someone is married or single. Well, you can tell the difference between married people by the things they do and the way they act, just like everyone else. The men start wearing a beard because it is a spiritual significance. After baptism, they are not allowed to shave, once you have it you keep it. For women,…
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Susan
“I work in the scale house, I weigh trucks of course. I’m also the dispatcher, so I let the truck drivers know when they need to change fields and when they have to start going to the new fields. We have 10 trucks on our run here and some of them are outside drivers and they don’t know where the fields are, so I give them directions. I make sure they all have everything they need. I make sure they all have food and I keep the coffee on. If they need a part then I make sure someone gets the part and the shop is ready for them. I…
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Simon Gross
“I’ve been doing this job since I was about 16. Driving truck and loading potatoes. I grew up around trucks and learned to drive when I was probably 14. When it’s not potato harvest time, I am irrigating and farming, keeping the circles moving.” #agriculture #hutteriancolony
