Farmer's Questionnaire: Sue Atherton from Atherton Farm

What do you grow? Vegetables at this time of year.

How did you start farming? My dad took me by the hand and out into the fields we went! When I would ride on his lap on the tractor as a small child, he would yodel.

How long have you been farming? I've been farming all my life - on the very same farm

What's your favorite thing to grow? Customers! I love to talk with the customers and share stories - especially about farming.

Tell us about a typical day on your farm at this point in the season. Pick vegetables for the farmstand. Peas and beans take awhile to pick. Squash is quicker. Weeding until the dew is off the hay. Then teddering and raking and baling and picking up and stacking on the wagons and unloading the wagons and piling in the barn. The hay - not the vegetables! Then a shower, supper and to bed. Oh yeah, I brush my teeth in there sometime

How do you see farming in your future? I expect to be farming to some degree until the day they pry my fingers off the hoe handle! Does that sound morbid - didn't mean it that way. Just know that I want to be able to enjoy the outdoors and the weather.

What is your farm like? Is it big? old? wild? organized? have green
houses? ancestral? weedy? paradise? My farm is home. I can't imagine living anywhere else. The work is never done, but if you can reconcile yourself to that fact, you won't go crazy. Well, not too crazy!

What's your favorite farming tool and how do you use it? My hands. You can do anything with your hands.

What's your least favorite job on the farm? Dealing with weeds - isn't that everyone's least favorite?

Tell us something special about your farm. My farm has been in my family since 1945. My dad built a respectable size dairy farm in the 50's and 60's. A dairy farm is a great place for a kid to grow up. Kids learn about work ethics, about responsibility, about swimming in the river and about ways to make yourself happy with little.

What's your favorite place on the farm? There is a big rock across the hay field from the house. It is on the edge of the woods - left from the glaciers - where I can sit and see the farm, but no one can see me.

What's the most frivolous thing you grow? Asparagus - just a small patch - mostly for us to eat!