Farming stories told

Of lives that have passed

Learn of rural home

Lifestyles to contrast

Day starts before dawn

Milking starts at three

Breakfast afterwards

Then school for kiddies

Each meal minor feast

Calories burned by work

Everyone has tasks

Kids part of teamwork

Sheep are raised for wool

Herding dogs are bred

Cats are part of team

Stop all rodent spread

Crops fed everyone

Animals and folk

Slaughter part of life

Meat was cured with smoke

Work runs into night

Bedtime about nine

Outside wind whistles

Through a large scotch pine

Snow mounds across land

Sheep are huddled tight

Bodies break cold wind

Through wet snowy night

Lined on kitchen shelves

Garden crops in jars

Near wood rocking chair

Sits an old guitar

Husband cuddles wife

Fire only light

Warm in feather bed

Wolves howl through dark night

Rural country life

Pieces of time past

Try to understand

Challenges so vast