Do you ever wonder what it would be like growing up on a farm in Canada? Well, Angie Allison is about to tell you. Angie grew up in Farview, Alberta, Canada on the banks of the Peace River. She was the youngest of six kids. She has three brothers and two sisters. Most things they did on the farm were to provide for the family. Just because they had to provide for the family and take the farm didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun though.
“Being the youngest of six had its ups and downs,” Angie said. “You were never lonely and somebody was always doing something interesting, whether it was mom cooking in the kitchen, or dad out doing chores with my brothers. I always had something to do.” She said she wouldn’t change anything about growing up. She had the freedom to run outside without worrying about where she was.
“It was expected that my brothers, sisters, and I would pitch in wherever needed, between planting and harvesting a big garden, to collecting eggs, all the way to butchering animals.” Every Thursday and Friday, Angies’ mom would bake for Saturday’s farmer’s market. “My job when it came to mom baking for the farmers market was to wash dishes, so many dishes.” Angie said washing the dishes was probably one of the worst parts of the farmer’s market.
Beef cattle and grain played the biggest part in providing for the family. “We would raise calves and sell them for profit.” In Alberta, they grow many different grains than we are used in Wisconsin, like wheat, canola, oats, and other grains. “We would plant them at the beginning of the season and then harvest them. We kept what we needed for our animals, and then we would sell the rest.”
Living on a farm wasn’t all hard work. Angie got to go horseback riding to round up cattle on horseback. For some, this might sound like work, but Angie loved it. One advantage of living by the river was that they could go fishing and swimming whenever they wanted. Angie said “we didn't go to the river very often, but when we did it was very fun.”