I grew up on a peanut farm. I hate peanuts.
People seem flabbergasted by this?
It begins by sowing them. I would drive a truck, with a trailer. Upon this trailer were sacks. The sacks contained peanuts. You wouldn’t want to eat these peanuts because they were coated with poison. The poison limited the number of peanuts that rodents and such might consume. Dad would drive a tractor. There would be a device that put the poison peanuts in the ground attached to said tractor. I would drive the truck to the tractor, open sacks, and fill bins on the poison peanut injector. It would be hot, lonely, dry, and boring…I hate peanuts.
Then you would water them. Peanuts are like thirsty little camels that live under the ground. Think about it, they have two humps, soak up the water, and love sandy soil. They are the camel of the plant kingdom. You would water them twice a day. There would be a big pipe out in the middle of the peanut field with wheels on it. You would move the pipes, hook up hoses, and start a pump to push water out the mighty sprinkler system. I would get up early to help my dad do this…I hate peanuts. The only reward is when a rodent would be in pipes and get shot through a sprinkler. Sometimes you would have to fish out part of him with a piece of wire.
Peanuts take approximately five months to reach maturity. This means you water and cultivate them during this long period…I hate peanuts.
Then you would harvest them. If you were unfortunate you may have to put them into potato sacks. Dirty little peanuts would be eaten by a machine that deposited them into a bin where you would manually put them into sacks. You would soon have enough dirt in your ears to pot a plant…I hate peanuts.
Most of the time I either put big blankets on top of trailers that the peanut eating machine would drop the nuts into or drove the tractor pulling the peanut eating machine. my friend Ty and I would climb on top of the mountain of peanuts, have a war throwing them at each other, and then spread the blanket over them to keep them dry and bid them adieu…I hate peanuts.
You reap what you sow
I hate peanuts. But I did love growing up on a farm. I love everything that it taught me, hard work, patience, and imagination. I would not trade it for anything. I didn’t like it when I was awakened at six in the morning. I didn’t like it when I got in late at night. But I thank GOD that I did the things I didn’t like, because I love what they birthed in me.
No Other Boast 
I worked on a peanut farm the summer of my 12th year. It’s funny that time erases all of the bad, and you remember the good. That summer was one of my favorites. I remember driving trucks and tractors – big stuff for a 12 year old, fresh from the big city. I had forgotton getting up in the middle of the night to move pipe and start pumps – some of our irrigation lines didn’t have wheels; pick up a 20′ joint of pipe, carry it 20 rows, and hook it up. That reeked. Too bad all kids don’t get to work on a farm at least once in their lives.
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