Raised on the farm? Most of us who read this publication’s words were.

It can be a great place to grow up. In modern society, opportunities to learn about the natural world in ways that let one be a part of it every day, at a time of life when the mind and body are the most available for growth are few and far between.

Farms are places where problem solving is second nature to the residents, or most farms wouldn’t exist. That skill is easy to nurture on a farm. Learning by example and the chance to practise solving puzzles with multiple variables starting at an early age is something special.

Farms are a great place to grow up, creating lifelong talents that can be applied in any field, but farming is also dangerous.

Just going out the door into the yard in the morning can kill you. While this might also be the case on a city street, on the farm the street begins on the back step. Instead of a street, that second step leads into what in the city would be categorized as a construction site.

On the farm, kids are raised to understand the perils, as much as kids can understand these things. And their parents are generally all too aware of the risks. They must balance the unparalleled opportunities that growing up on a modern farm, hand in glove with the generations that came before them, offer against the dangers the environment creates.

Over the past few weeks we have been highlighting farm safety issues in your Western Producer. Farm Living Editor Karen Morrison travelled to the Canadian Agricultural Safety annual meeting in Charlottetown and wrote about it over the past few weeks and again this week. Reporter Brian Cross wrote about an expanded grain entrapment safety program expansion last week. It is what we do.

Last week we ran the photo above on our front page. Whether you see the danger, the opportunity or both, we knew before we published the image you would be in touch with us about it.

The WP documents the world we encounter as it actually is. Other than our Opinion pieces, like this one, we don’t tell you what is right or wrong about it and we make no pretense about showing the world as it could or should be. We present the world just as it is, so you can make your decisions accordingly.