What does the speaker say about the farm owners?

Thirty years ago, when I was a small child, nay father arranged for me to spend two summer acations at a farm in South Dakota. He thought it would be good for me, and he was right. It taught me a great deal about the importance of independence. The people who lived there were practically selfsufficient. They raised sheep for wool, wove it into fabric, and built their cabins from logs. The place was so isolated that the owner’s daughter, who must have been in her early twenties, said that she has never been away from home or seen a train.