More Than A Farm

By: Cody Wheeler

Hey thank you so much for checking out the new Thistle Downs Farm blog! We are excited to join the online agricultural community, and we look forward to connecting with like-minded people like you. We understand how crucial it is to hightlight the importance of agriculture, and we want our blog to reflect that!
As I was sitting here staring at my computer trying to figure out what this first blog post should be about, I started to think about what Thistle Downs means to me. For me, Thistle Downs is much more than just a farm. It has been a way of life that literally shaped my entire childhood.
From an early age, I learned responsibility by doing farm chores and caring for animals who relied on me for their wellbeing. I remember my dad explaining to me when I was young, that the animals get fed first, then it’s my turn to have breakfast. So every morning I would slip on my muck boots and walk out into the barnyard to make the rounds.
I remember our old Chesepeake Bay Retriever, Molly, would sometimes keep me company. I’d make sure the rabbits were happy and then I’d make my way up to the chicken coop. The chickens were always excited to see me because they new it meant breakfast was on it’s way. I’d feed them, and then collect the eggs in a little metal pale and bring them back down to the house.
We had a little creek running right through the farm and I used to bring 5 gallon pales over to it and fill them up one by one and carry them back to the barnyard so there was always water available for the animals. I eventually got smart and hooked a wagon up to our lawn tractor and filled all the buckets in one trip.
Speaking of the creek, I would say about 75% of my summers were spent playing in that stream. My sister and I would arm ourselves with nets and wade into the water barefoot, catching anything and everything we could. We caught bugs, frogs, minnows, snakes, turtles, and salamanders. We would keep our haul captive in a bucket just long enough to proudly show mom and dad, then we’d dump them back into the creek. In fact, I remember my sister and I spent so much time catching minnows in the stream that we were eventually able to snatch a fish right out of the pond barehanded. TRUE STORY! I doubt I’d be able to do that now but it got pretty easy when I was younger.
In the woods surrounding all of the fields, my friends and I built numerous forts, none to completion, but fun nonetheless. We also spent countless hours roaming the cornfields playing whatever game we made up that day. We even had a big sledding hill right behind our barn to keep us entertained all winter.
Even when I was in high school and actually had a playstation, I preferred to be outside. My friends and I took a mower and cut a giant ATV track into one of our fields (with my parents’ approval, of course). We would time each other over and over again to see how fast we could make it around on our four-wheelers.
We also loved to build shooting ranges for our guns and bows. I remember setting up countless saltine crackers on branches and hay bails, and picking them off with a .22, all day long. For the bigger caliber rifles, we would fill milk jugs with water and get pumped every time we saw one explode!
So to bring it back around, I couldn’t be more grateful to have been brought up on Thistle Downs Farm. Every single day was and is an adventure in some way, shape, or form. Much has changed over the years, but the feeling is always the same. Between my parents, Terry and Jackie, my sister Kayla, and my Grandpa Phil, we take a ton of pride in the life we have built here as a family. Now we want to share it with you because for us, Thistle Downs is much more than just a farm. It is our passion and way of life!

Thanks for reading!

Cody