From the entertaining to the educational, here are two farmer-run Twitter accounts to follow.
@dailydairydiary
Cam Houle, known on Twitter as @dailydairydiary, shows the highs and lows of dairy farming with self-deprecation and humour.
“If you’ve ever heard a rock grinding up your manure ramp, then you’ve no need to feel shame for crapping your pants,” he tweeted.
“I think I’m gonna make it in this damn business. I haven’t stressed-barfed in months. That’s all the sign I need, folks.”
One more tweet for good measure:
“I looked across the barn when this calf was born, and it was a bull. Upon closer inspection, I’ve identified her as a heifer. I’m dumb.”
Houle’s tweets tell his back-to-farming story, but he also uses the social media site as a resource. When he couldn’t get parts for broken water bowls in Saskatchewan, he turned to a Twitter friend, Ian Porteous, in Ontario.
“[He] drove to his local parts dealer, bought the parts for me and put them on the bus to me. I e-transferred him the funds the same day. It was glorious,” Houle wrote in a message on Twitter.
It’s been more than a year since the Saskatchewan farmer’s first days with his herd.
“The best day was the first day the cows arrived. Followed immediately by the three worst days of my life,” he recalled. “I slept on an old school bus seat in the barn the first two nights. I was there for 40 hours out of the first 48. Maybe 42. I couldn’t leave.
“It was terrible.”
Houle has grown better at handling the mistakes and challenges of his chosen career.
“I think I’ve grown up and realized that those things are going to happen, and how I respond to crappy situations is going to dictate my own success or failure in farming. Everyone has bad days and stupid situations, so there’s nothing to gain by allowing it to bring me down.
“I just have to say to myself, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be today anyway.”
Houle also blogs at dailydairydiaryblog.wordpress.com.
@farmermegzz
The first thing on Megz Reynolds' Twitter feed is a video of her lip syncing to 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” while driving a combine.
Keep scrolling, and photos of her kids pop up. Reynolds said they farm as a family.
“Our girls have been riding in tractors and equipment basically since they were born,” she wrote in an email. “Hopefully as they grow older they will continue to share our love and passion for farming.”
Megz and her husband run a grain farm, have a small herd of cattle and raise 15 to 20 pigs for meat. Though they aren’t hands-on yet, her daughters have a farm egg business that helps them save for university.
The tweeter and blogger (dirtsweatntears.com) didn’t start out as a farm kid. She visited her grandparents’ farm in Alberta on weekends and during summer holidays.
“I always knew that I wanted to end up on a farm or acreage, but it took me almost 12 years to do so.”
Megz spent a decade in the film industry before meeting her fiancé, a fourth generation farmer in Saskatchewan.
“It didn’t take me long to pack up and move out to his tiny hometown, which has a smaller population than the high school I attended growing up,” she wrote.
The one thing this tweeting farmer wants non-farmers to know?
“I’m just a mom who is also worried and concerned about my kids and what they eat,” she wrote. “I want them to know that farmers everywhere are open to conversation, even the hard ones, so instead of asking Google, ask a farmer!”
