Meet Farmer Ben and his family!

~I’ve done a ‘Polar Plunge’ to support Special Olympics.
~I’ve stayed up all night, but only once or twice.
~I’ve watched the sunrise in Arizona.
~I’ve spent a lot of nights sitting on the hood of my car looking at the stars.
~I played the part of the White Rabbit from ‘Alice In Wonderland’ when I was in second grade.
~I’ve had my arm in a cow’s butt. You can learn a lot in there if you know what you’re feeling for which I don’t.
~I’ve been kicked by a cow.
~I played Paul Bunyan in sixth grade.
~I’ve had my arm in a cow’s side during surgery for a twisted stomach. The cow’s stomach, not mine.
~I’ve had my feet stepped on by a cow.
~I was pen pals with a class of 1st graders in West St. Paul.
~I’ve had my arm inside a cow when pulling a calf.
~I crawled 145 feet up the 280’ radio tower on our property. I was headed for the top when I started but gosh, that’s higher than it looks from the ground…
~I’ve seen and helped with calf births.
~I served on the Rochester Repertory Theater Board of Directors for a few years.
~I know how the knotters work on a baler.
~I pushed Kenny Rogers to the stage in a box.
~I have tipped over cows.
~I played the trumpet all through Junior and Senior High School.
~I stood next to a guy whose back John Denver touched.
~My first off the farm job was for Anderson’s Formal Wear. I pressed tuxedo pants, shirts, vest’s and coats.
~I have a 5 string banjo that I started to learn how to play.
~I’ve had to put down cows that I really loved.
~I worked for the ASCS service (Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service -- a part of the Department of Agriculture) as a field reporter. I measured fields and grain bins.
~I won the ‘Golden “Oink, Oink” Award’ from the Mantorville Theatre Company in 1985.
~I spent six years on the Haverhill Township Planning and Zoning Board.
~I don’t know exactly when I started farming. I just kinda always have.
~I married Kelly in 1990.
~Preston was born in 1992.
~Amelia was born in 1995.
~I sold the milk cows in 2004 and started full time as a free lance theatre technician.
~I’ve been a supervisor on the Haverhill Townboard since 1998.
~Spring planting is my favorite time of the year.
~I can replace the brake pads on Kelly’s car.
~I’ve been seen onstage smoking, with my zipper down, in my underwear with my foot stuck in a plant stand. But not all at once…
~I know how to butcher a chicken but I’d rather collect the eggs….
~I love to read.
~I like to channel surf.
~There’s something pretty cool about watching a musician.
~Kelly and I made a deal when we decided to have children: I’d handle the puke, she’d handle the poop. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t…Usually it doesn’t.
~I have a big red truck, a blue car and 3 green tractors.
~I’m addicted to email.
~We had our yard light taken down so we could see the night sky.
~I can take the keyboard out of a grand piano. And put it back in correctly!

Click on images for larger pictures.

Amelia and I after I did the 2003 Polar Plunge in support of Special Olympics. February 8, 2003	My wife Kelly and her newly refinished piano.
Our son Preston. May 26, 2003	Amelia loves to swing. May 26, 2003
Farmer Ben and his parents Farmer Joe and Mrs. Farmer June	Travis describes his mouse adventure.

Write me: ben@farmerben.com

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