"I'm A Virtual Farmer"

Yes, I'm a virtual farmer (at Facebook's Farmville that is.) If you have the urge to grow crops, tend farm animals, visit neighboring farms, purchase farm equipment, and construct farm buildings all from the comfort of your home sitting on your couch; then maybe you too can become a "virtual farmer". You get all the benefits of a real farm without the backbreaking work of shoveling manure,milking cows, and harvesting crops as you earn "coins" for your virtual efforts. I find it funny at "Farmville" that the cows "Moo", the sheep "Baaa", the cats "Meow", the pigs "Oink, Oink" the chickens "Cluck,Cluck" Cluck", and all these animals randomly move from time to time so you have to put them in a corral or get them back to where you want them as they all seem to have a mind of their own; just like "real" animals.

I'm relatively new to this virtual farming but some of my neighboring farmers such as "Farmer James", "Farmer Julianne", "Farmer Judy" and "Farmer Eranne" among others have quite the well planned farms with cow barns, little ponds, tractors, and all sorts of things. Me, I'll have to work my farm harder for a while to earn enough "coin" to afford these items.

One of my relatives had a "real" farm in Suffield, Connecticut and we used to go to "Miller's farm" each Fourth of July holiday while growing up in Simsbury, Connecticut for the annual "Shaw family picnic". On many a year there were it seemed about one hundred people there; a lot of my cousins, aunts and uncles, and we would have a cookout along with swimming in their outdoor pool. One of the memorable items at the cookout was "pigs in a blanket" which is made by taking a small roll and filling this roll with cheese then wrapping a strip of bacon around the outside of the roll and pushing a toothpick through the roll to keep the bacon strip on the roll then putting the "pigs in a blanket" on the charcoal grill to cook. A very tasty treat and I'm sure very good for you with the bacon and cheese and all.

Fred Miller and his wife Dorothy had approximately one hundred fifty Holstein milk cows on their real farm and they had to milk them twice a day. They picked the times of four o'clock in the afternoon and four o'clock in the morning. I guess that they sure practiced the maxim "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise"; as to me four o'clock in the morning is pretty early to get up each day seven days a week. Of course maybe they stayed up each night past four in the morning, milked the cows, then went to sleep all morning and afternoon and then woke up in time for the four o' clock afternoon milk schedule with the hours of a "rock star" but I tend to doubt that. The Miller's had a few large red barns and I remember the shiny stainless steel milk holding tanks as my cousin Roger and I among others would watch the milk shoot through clear tubes from the milk pumping machines attached to the cows as the holding tanks filled up with fresh milk.

Yes, I'm a "virtual farmer". This is less work than a real farm but a fun way to get an idea of what a "real life" farmer does on the farm.