A Family Tradition is Buried but yet Grows on..............

I hope you enjoyed the potato pictures that I posted last time.  Growing potatoes, actually seed potatoes, had been our main crop here on the farm up until about 5 years ago. Now is the time when we would normally be getting ready to plant potatoes.  When you have done something for so long, it's hard to not still get a little feeling of loss when you don't do it anymore.  Letting go of this family tradition was a very hard step for my Farmer and me.  His grandfather along with his brothers started planting potatoes here in the 1920's.  In fact, their first crop of spuds were stored in the basement of their house.  This only happened one year.  Evidently, their mother did not appreciated the smell of the dirty potatoes under her house all winter.  When they were growing them back then, this area was a very big producer of seed potatoes.  Over time, most of the growers weeded out, and by the 1980's there were only 2 growers left.  Then in the 90's we were the only grower left in the county that grew seed potatoes commercially.  We held out for quite some time, but finally had to make the tough decision to stop.  My Farmer took a lot of pride in growing a crop of potatoes, and really misses the challenge of growing them.  However, there are many other aspects the are associated with growing spuds that he does not miss.  With out growing potatoes we tease that we are semi-retired.  And some days it really does feel like that.  Oh, we still do plant a few potatoes, just enough for the family to eat (and the neighbors, and their families, and their neighbors).  But we don't get out the big planter when we plant, or the big harvester when we dig them. It's just a rake and a shovel and some good old fashion manual labor.  Which, in a way I think, helps us heal that open wound feeling of not carrying on the family tradition.  We are planting the potatoes in a way that his grandfather may have done some 85 years ago with his first crop.  So within the next week or so, it'll just be my Farmer and me (and any other friend, family member, or sucker that happens along that day), out on our hands and knees, playing in the dirt, and reminiscing about days gone bye, and dreaming about days yet to come. 
If you have a memory about growing or harvesting potatoes, I would love it if you would leave a comment and share your memory.