How does agriculture do it? How does it take a group of people and pull them in close enough to feel like family? How does just 1 percent of the population, scattered across thousands of miles – some in the remotest of areas from human contact – feel a closeness to someone they’ve never met?

Last Friday our ag science class went to the barn to get a pen ready for two feeder pigs that were donated by a generous man in the community. He had a couple of extras and thought it would be a good project for our class, most of whom have never gotten within 10 feet of a live hog.

They put up the gates, filled the pen with shavings and then the pigs arrived. The boys maneuvered the hogs in the pen and secured their feeder and waterer. The most unlikely girls in the class jumped in the pen with the boys and were making sure the pen was “hog-tight,” while the other girls came up with names.

Then it happened. We all just stood around and watched the two hogs sniff around their pen. What were we waiting for? What were we watching for? What made all of us stand there and stare at two hogs?

It suddenly felt like family.

Whenever a new calf was born or cow was purchased at our farm, we would all stand around and watch her and talk about our plans for her – wondering what we should name her or which we should breed her to, remarking about how she might do in the show ring and who was going to get to show her.

Last Friday, these young budding livestock enthusiasts stood around and talked about what we were going to do with these hogs, how much feed they would eat, were they cool enough on this warm, sunny day, did we need to leave the barn door open and how long would we have them before they would be butchered.

They guessed at how much they weighed, what breed they were and their names changed at least half a dozen times. It was time for them to get to their next class but they begged to stay … just a little longer.

And of course, I relented and said, “Who needs geometry, anyway?”

After a few more minutes, they all went back to class, smelling like hogs. But somehow, they just didn’t care. They were proud of their new addition to their farm and as we all walked back in together, I suddenly felt as if I was a mom to 24 more kids.

Agriculture has always had a way of binding people together and last week, it did it again.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.