Joe Mullens
by Jane Mullens
All that green grass dotted with Hereford beef cattle, including sixteen new calves, won't last long. What then will happen? Well, right now Joe Mullens is fixing new fences around a larger pasture to turn the cattle out for the summer, before they manage to find their own way out and not through the gate either. Joe, who is presently employed at Lincoln Farm in Blandford, has been work- ing on the fencing a month now, and will fin- ish in a week or two.
Joe became a farmer because he had lived on a farm most of his life and was in charge of a team of horses in the field. He has always been interested in farming and never had a doubt in his mind that there was anything else that would suit him better than farming. When he was a boy, he distinctly remembered what he liked best about going to other neighbors to help.
"I liked going to other farms in the neighborhood to help for no pay. That is, no pay in money. After the work was done, I was invited in to the different houses to have homemade doughnuts, cider, or fresh milk.”
After a few farm jobs which were usually on-the-job training, learning new things every day, Joe came to the conclusion that "Experience is the best teacher.”
Joe's first paying job was at Lilac Farm in Framingham. He was thirteen years old when he started there and was there for three or four years. His grandfather had worked there before him. The pay was only fifty cents an hour for the care of fifteen Thoroughbred horses. The care included grooming the horses, cleaning their stalls, and doing all the vet work and feeding.
After that job he went to Mayo's Dairy Farm, where he was up at five in the morning to milk the fifty cows. He had to milk again at five in the afternoon. He was seventeen then and he stayed at that job for seven years.
He went into the army and after he was out he went to Stockbridge School of Agriculture for a two-year course in Animal Husbandry. The government paid for his education as part of the G.I. Bill. After that he went back to Mayo's. The pay was twenty-five dollars a week.
After he was married, he went right to Blandford for a job at Laurel Hill Farm, where he worked for seventeen years. He had to do all the haying and vet work himself. There at the farm he had a cow die and before it was buried, he did an autopsy on it and found that it died from a porcupine quill that found its way to the heart and pierced it. He then went back to the records to find out that four years before, the cow had had to have quills taken from her nose. A few that were missed found their way to the bloodstream and the heart, causing her death.
There was also one unexpected event that happened at one of the farms at which he was once employed. He says,"I would watch the men wheel the manure in the wheel-barrow up a plank and dump it out towards the pile. One day I tried it, but never let go, and found myself up to my arm- pits in manure!”
Joe has enjoyed all his farming jobs and hopes to farm for a long while yet.
from Stone Walls Magazine, Fall, 1976
Joe became a farmer because he had lived on a farm most of his life and was in charge of a team of horses in the field. He has always been interested in farming and never had a doubt in his mind that there was anything else that would suit him better than farming. When he was a boy, he distinctly remembered what he liked best about going to other neighbors to help.
"I liked going to other farms in the neighborhood to help for no pay. That is, no pay in money. After the work was done, I was invited in to the different houses to have homemade doughnuts, cider, or fresh milk.”
After a few farm jobs which were usually on-the-job training, learning new things every day, Joe came to the conclusion that "Experience is the best teacher.”
Joe's first paying job was at Lilac Farm in Framingham. He was thirteen years old when he started there and was there for three or four years. His grandfather had worked there before him. The pay was only fifty cents an hour for the care of fifteen Thoroughbred horses. The care included grooming the horses, cleaning their stalls, and doing all the vet work and feeding.
After that job he went to Mayo's Dairy Farm, where he was up at five in the morning to milk the fifty cows. He had to milk again at five in the afternoon. He was seventeen then and he stayed at that job for seven years.
He went into the army and after he was out he went to Stockbridge School of Agriculture for a two-year course in Animal Husbandry. The government paid for his education as part of the G.I. Bill. After that he went back to Mayo's. The pay was twenty-five dollars a week.
After he was married, he went right to Blandford for a job at Laurel Hill Farm, where he worked for seventeen years. He had to do all the haying and vet work himself. There at the farm he had a cow die and before it was buried, he did an autopsy on it and found that it died from a porcupine quill that found its way to the heart and pierced it. He then went back to the records to find out that four years before, the cow had had to have quills taken from her nose. A few that were missed found their way to the bloodstream and the heart, causing her death.
There was also one unexpected event that happened at one of the farms at which he was once employed. He says,"I would watch the men wheel the manure in the wheel-barrow up a plank and dump it out towards the pile. One day I tried it, but never let go, and found myself up to my arm- pits in manure!”
Joe has enjoyed all his farming jobs and hopes to farm for a long while yet.
from Stone Walls Magazine, Fall, 1976