I was thinking of my Dad, who as the eldest son of a large family, had to drop out of school at age 12 to do most of the work on the farm his folks had acquired. He was big and strong ofr his age, thankfully, for his Dad was not cut out to be a farmer. An immigrant from a German city, "Dad" had grudgingly given up his job as an engineer at brewery and bought the farm at the insistence of his farmer's daughter's wife. You know what running a dairy entails and grandpop was not up to it. He stayed in the house and had coffee while my Dad handled the cows. For more than ten years my Dad was in charge, and learned be jack of all trades. This served him well and went into the oil field, where he helped support the family by sending half his pay home, Ironically, the person left in charge was his younger sister who could outwork almost any man, except my Dad, the hardest working man I ever knew. Eventually he became the superintedent of a drilling company. Forgive me if I wave lyrical about my hero, my Dad. Kudos to you.
My Grandpa was the opposite! He drove out to the farm every day except Sunday until his 80's. We kind of wished he would stay inside and drink coffee sometimes. When my step Grandma (Grandpa became a double widower) went to the nursing home, he gave that up and spent five years driving to the see her every day. That taught me what love really is.
Farm work is the best preparation for process and construction engineering that I know of. Knowing the right and wrong way to do things like change out augur flighting has served me very well so far.