Mother’s Day Snapshots of the Modern Farm Mom

Written By Patricia Bianca

Fields of corn reaching toward clear, blue skies, gentle cows lumbering across expanses of open pasture and picturesque farmhouses tucked into the ebb and flow of the green and gold landscape É that is what attracts most newcomers to Carroll County. But these pastoral scenes are increasingly giving way to housing developments, strip malls and all the other indicators of urban sprawl.

Caught up in the swirl of cultural clashes and changing community needs on this Mother’s Day (May 14) are the small, family-owned farms that have typified Carroll County for centuries and, in particular, the women who continue to raise children, animals and crops amidst the ever-mounting pressures of a changing landscape.

Most of us picture farm life from the images of old movies and beloved childhood classics: the humble father-farmer, diligently tending his fields, and the mother, surrounded by children, housework and apple pies. Those images, while comforting, bear no resemblance to life on a farm in the 21st century.

Modern farm families increasingly rely on outside income to make ends meet. “I don’t know of any farms that don’t have at least one spouse working outside the farm,” observes Leslie Selby.

Leslie is a good example of the new “traditional” farm mom. She is the owner and operator of Cedar Wool Farms in Taneytown, Maryland, and mother to three children – Felisha, age 12, Nathen, age 10, and Aulden, age 8. Her husband, Terry, works for the County’s Northern Landfill.

Life for Leslie is a constant blur of activity. She awakens at 3 a.m. to light the wood stove that heats the Civil War era home where she grew up and now rents from her mother. Leslie then has a few hours to devote to housework, her computer, and the crafts she sells before she has to wake the children and get them off to school. The rest of the day is spent tending to her flock of 30-40 ewes, providing them hay and grain, tending to medical needs, and checking the baby monitors during lambing season.
When the children come home, Leslie becomes “Mom” again, helping the little ones with homework and doing all the other things it takes to raise healthy children.

Amazingly, Leslie has also found the time to help found two craft guilds related to her farm’s main product, fine wool. SHEpherds Potpourri is a group of shepherds, spinners and crafters from various sheep and alpaca farms who sell their goods in a studio located in Tuscarora, Maryland. Leslie’s other endeavor, Pet Hugs, allows people to have the fur from their longhaired pets woven into scarves and other craft items.

“I have to have enough outside influence,” Leslie said. “I don’t want to feel isolated. I need to keep growing. I don’t want to become stagnant.”
Technology has certainly helped the modern farm mom feel less isolated.
Leslie even has friends and associates in England, who provide valuable advice on the tending of her flock, genetics and other issues. The Internet also provides warnings of spreading diseases.

“It’s nice to have so many resources online,” she said. “Technology is helping. You know that you are not alone. You’ve got support and answers.”
Of course, that is only one aid to farmers in a sea of modern changes.
Dwindling resources are a constant worry to Leslie, who is having increasing difficulty finding good tradesmen, like shearers, and even the supplies and equipment needed to keep her farm going. “There are fewer places to shop for supplies. Most focus on horses now. Thank goodness for Southern States,” she chuckled.

A changing base of neighbors is also a source of concern to Leslie. Imagine trying to explain to your children’s school administrators that the kids may not be able to take their tests today because their arms are sore from helping deliver newborn lambs all night.

Leslie’s mother, Syd Keller, another farm mom who raises sheep next door, also worries about the school system’s acceptance of her grandchildren’s lifestyle.

“I would hope,” she said, “that as the county is growing so much and becoming more pseudo-urban, that they do make allowances for farm children, because that’s part of their education as well.”

Syd remembers raising Leslie and her brother Lance in a much different Carroll County. She and her husband, Walt, came here from Baltimore in the mid 1960s because of the county’s “wonderful rural quietness and calmness.”
“We felt, ÔWhat a wonderful place to raise the kids,’” she said. “’They’d have the freedom to run and to have animals and to touch base with nature.’” Having grown up in Cortland, New York, and worked on her aunt’s horse farm, Syd knew the importance of such things.

Syd and her family waded into farm life slowly. Walt continued to work as a production manager for Penguin Books, while Syd raised the children, remodeled the home and tended to a growing barnyard of animals, which soon included cows, ducks, geese, chickens, show cats, purebred puppies, and eventually the sheep that would become the staple of life for Syd and Leslie. Syd even served many years as a judge in the world of cat shows.

It was a simpler time, Syd recalled, full of laughter, creativity and the unexpected. “One of our geese was named Godzilla, and I never knew when whether Godzilla would be in the house or not,” she said. “Often, Lance would be lying on the couch watching television with Godzilla on his lap.”
The humble home also played host to lambs and Great Dane puppies, which the family bred and sold. “It was a wonderful time,” Syd sighed.

Syd is happy to see her grandchildren growing up on the family farm and relishing the experiences that it provides. “They’re secure, they’re bright, and they’re invested in what’s happening on the farm,” she said.
Although she is confident that these experiences will shape their lives in a positive way no matter where they end up, Syd doubts that her grandchildren will have the opportunity to own their own farms.

“You see what’s happening around Taneytown,” she said. “They’re going to force us out within the next 15 to 20 years, just with taxes alone. The taxes are definitely phenomenal and growing every two or three years at gigantic rates. I know progress and growth are important for a community to survive-but how to go about that while maintaining the uniqueness, the special feeling of a rural community, I don’t know.”

Nowhere is this dilemma more evident than on Dennis and Mary Harner’s cattle farm. It lies just on the edge of Taneytown, effectively marking the exact point where town becomes country. The Harners’ land, which is comprised of three farms and boasts approximately 200 cattle, meanders along Route 140. The cattle graze behind the commercial buildings and urbanized ranch homes that dot the highway’s rural outcropping.

Living in such close proximity to city dwellers, many of whom have come to the area from places like Baltimore, is making life uncomfortable for this farm mom and her husband. Mary, a slim, soft-spoken woman, has had to confront the parents of local youth who trespass and harass her cattle and neighbors who don’t realize the dangers of shooting their arrows into the bales of hay that the farmers grow and feed to their cattle.

“If one of those arrowheads breaks off and one of the cows eats it along with the hay,” she said, “it could cause real trouble.”

The increased urbanization of the area is also resulting in increased regulations for farmers. “I know things are getting harder for [Dennis],” Mary said. “He’s going to have to keep track of each cow with a number, and there’s a lot of county regulations telling you when you can spread manure and do other things.”

In her family, Mary is the one who works outside the home; at Aristocraft in nearby Littlestown, Pennsylvania. That doesn’t diminish her importance on the farm, which has been in her husband’s family for many years. Mary handles the billing and taxes for the farm and also runs many errands. She tends to all the housework and, because Dennis is busy tending the hay and cattle all day, Mary must also take care of yard work and other outside chores.

Mary raised two daughters: Christine, now 29, and Dawn, age 25, in the farm’s tidy home – “It was good for them,” she said, “because they learned what work is and have worked from the time they were young kids. They’re used to being around machinery and stuff like that, too, so neither of them are scared to walk down to the barnyard.”

The girls also learned a love of animals, tenderly caring for the multiple cats that made the farm their home, but there were some drawbacks to raising a farm family. A birthing cow or a farm emergency would routinely interrupt gatherings and outings. “It’s a different life ,” she said, “because you just don’t pick up and go on the weekends like other families. It’s a seven day a week job.”

Although Mary stayed home and baby-sat several children for a time in her youth, she soon realized that she needed to work outside the home, both financially and for her own sanity. Having eight children underfoot wasn’t easy on either the house or Mary’s psyche. But even though the children are grown, working outside is still a necessity.

“If I didn’t work outside the home,” she said, “ we would have to go bigger, raise more cattle for more money. Mainly, I work for the insurance. We’re not fancy people. We don’t live high.”