Farm Life Lessons — Sarah Yenesel

Bradley Price with his children, Hollyn and Cruse, help their dad pour feed for cattle into buckets. The barn is part of Bradley's grandmother's farm which he tends. Bradley's grandfather taught him how to farm on this land, and now Bradley teaches what he learned to his children.

Heather Price catches up with Cruse after school while Keene Price, 13, checks his phone and Hollyn examines her Halloween haul.

Bradley and Heather talk about the day ahead and coordinate schedules before leaving for work.

Keene, Bradley and Hollyn prepare beverages before sitting down to dinner on an evening when Heather is working a late shift at her second job.

Hollyn plays in the mud behind her great uncle's barn before checking on the well-being of the cows with her family.

Heather gets ready for work while Cruse, just out of bed, nestles against her.

Heather answers a question from John Taylor Yazell, one of her students at Nicholas County Elemetary School where she teaches fifth- and sixth-grade science.

Keene updates Heather on his school assignments and grades.

Bradley holds down a newborn calf so Hollyn and Cruse can pet it while its mother keeps a watchful eye.

Cruse and Bradley drive home after checking on the cattle.

Just off the school bus, Cruse and Hollyn watch a leaf fire started by their Uncle Ricky, Rick Chasteen, who talks to Heather in his driveway.

Bradley and Hollyn walk the field on his grandmother's farm to check on the cows.

When Heather Price dashes from her full-time job as a science teacher in Carlisle to her second job in Paris, she knows her children will be in good hands.

Mr. Myron, who drove the school bus she rode as a child, will drop off her kids at their grandparents' house down the road from their own. Heather’s parents, Susan Argo-Kendall and Kenny Kendall, will be waiting with snacks.

“It takes an army to raise a family,” says husband and dad, Bradley Price, who farms their 46 acres and helps with his grandmother’s 300 acres across town while also holding down a full-time maintenance job at the Housing Authority of Cynthiana.

Heather, Bradley and their three children – Cruse, 6, Hollyn, 8, and Keene, 13 – live on top of a hill in a 115-year-old farm house that has been home to four generations of Franklin and Argo families.

In addition to her parents, Heather's aunts and uncles live in houses they built on the farmland where they grew up. Another one of their siblings bought land across the road too. Their stretch of Old Lair Road has become a family network of love and reliability.

The house where the Prices live once belonged to Heather’s late grandmother. Heather has vivid memories of it from that time, including the house's smell and a squeaky drawer in the kitchen that's still there.

The house has come to feel like her own family's home, she says. A place where she and Bradley are passing on the values of love and hard work to their kids while striving to be good role models as farmers and in their daytime jobs.

Heather's pay from teaching fifth- and sixth-graders is not ideal, but she finds it rewarding to help her students beyond academics and also likes to have a schedule that coincides with her children's.

She recently took on two night shifts a week at the Trackside Restaurant to augment her teacher's pay and bring in some money for Christmas. On those nights, Bradley does what he can on the farm and takes on Heather's usual after-school responsibilities of picking up Keene from basketball, cooking dinner and helping with homework.

Heather feels “mom guilt” from missing out on those two nights a week. The children have said they miss her. She explained to them that they need extra money to do fun things. She wants to be an example to them that money is earned.

“I’m not going to imprint to them that money is always available . . . They need to understand that they have to work," Heather said.

Bradley often brings the kids with him when he farms his grandmother's land. He remembers how much he learned when he pitched in to help his late grandfather after he broke a hip falling off a horse. Now Bradley teaches his kids the lessons that the farm taught him about mechanics, construction, livestock and self-sufficiency.

Bradley said, “The more you can do yourself, the better you are."

This story was completed during the 44th Mountain Workshop in Cynthiana, Kentucky, Oct. 29 - Nov. 2, 2019.