Summer has set in on the farm. The days are long and hot with not a lot going on. The tobacco is set and now we spend a lot of time just watching it grow. The wet weather has created some problems like stem rot and we're seeing some black shank. Both are diseases that can cause severe problems. So far it's just at the watch and wait stage. The hay is cut and now hubby is bush-hogging off the pastures to clean up and stimulate the grass growth.
The grandsons have been spending a lot of time hanging out on the farm. So once again I am hearing the sound of laughter as the little boys busily dig around the base of the old maple tree. The grass will grow back but the memories of farming in the dirt will last forever. Some of the toys they have drug out are left from the days of their father's childhood. They don't make toys like that now. The old metal Tonka trucks and bulldozers are still doing a hard days hauling and digging. They even had some old metal toy tractors, plows and planters, also their dad's. The new ones we bought last summer have long since been broken and thrown away. Progress isn't always better.
It's been really hot, so I caved and brought out the water guns and water balloons. Some basic rules: 1. You cannot get grandma wet. 2. You cannot spray the windows I just washed (good luck with that one) 3. No running into the house to hide and drip all over my floors. 4. No whining. 5. About anything else is legal. The porch was awash with water and the fight was on within minutes. Shrieks and shouts filled the air.
About this time my son wandered into the house to check on the survival rate (theirs or mine). "Who were the men in the gray truck?" he asked. I shrugged, "What truck? I haven't seen anyone. The only time the dog barked is when you came in." (The dog always assumes my son is the bad guy!) It seems that the boys had reported that two men had arrived at the farm to look at some bulls. After waving to the boys they checked out the cattle in the front field and drove off.
"Why on earth" I mused "would they not come to the house? They saw the boys playing. They had to know someone was in the house!" My son looked at the wet porch, spraying water hose, and the furious water battle taking place on the sidewalk and slowly grinned. "Are you kidding? They would have been walking targets in the middle of that onslaught!"
I looked around, laughed, and quickly slammed the door before we became targets, too.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Hail in the Heartland
There are few things that leave us as powerless as extreme weather.
We experienced that while visiting our daughter in Iowa. Hubby and I had been left in charge of the farm while our daughter and son-in-law took the oldest grandchild to the doctor in Des Moines.
Hubby was comfortably stretched out in the recliner watching a golf match, when it started to rain. The rain became harder and harder then it began to sound even louder. We went to the door looking out on the back deck and discovered it was beginning to hail. The little flakes of ice were about the size of a fingernail but as we watched the rain changed entirely to hail. It looked like a snowstorm. Soon the deck was covered in white. Then we noticed that the hail covering the deck looked like it had small craters in it. In amazement we watched as hail stones as big as golf balls began to fall faster and faster, pounding the deck, literally exploding the smaller hail covering the deck out of the way. Almost as quickly, it was over. The cloud passed and the sun came out. The storm, which had arrived with no warning had lasted less than 10 minutes.
We ran to the door to check the damage. We stared in disbelief at the cars and truck left in the drive earlier. All were beaten and covered in golf ball sized dents with windshields and tail lights broken. The ground was covered ankle deep in leaves from the surrounding trees, the flower beds were beaten to a pulp, her little vegetable garden just gone, with not a leaf left of the beans, tomatoes and peppers. Flower pots on the deck were shattered. Then our gaze went to the corn field in front of the house. Where once had been rows of little green plants were now just stubs. The metal buildings were now sporting a coat of polka dots where the hail had blown the paint off. The huge plastic covered worm of silage so recently stored for winter feed looked like it had been blasted with a huge shot-gun. The plastic was just covered in holes.
Our son-in-law and daughter arrived home to utter devastation. He immediately took off to check the fields. He came back to report that his hay crop was beaten to the ground but the cows and calves were all accounted for. The corn was stripped of the leaves but if the growth nodes weren't damaged it could come back. Maybe. He also discovered that the hail storm had been extremely local...almost just their farm. Going a mile in any direction and you soon drove out of the damage area.
Looking around at the mess, he said, "It could have been worse. It wasn't a tornado and we could have had the tractors and planters here instead of at the other farm." He was right. We were safe and so were the megabucks expensive tractors and delicate planters. On a farm, cars, roofs, and buildings are secondary to the all important planting equipment.
I have to give my son-in-law credit. Not once did he ask "Why didn't you put some of these vehicles in the shed?" A question hubby would have been screaming at the top of his lungs. The truth is it was unbelievably vicious and fast.
When we left for home a few days later our daughter laughed and said as she hugged me, "You won't be crying when you leave this time. You'll be driving 90 miles an hour to get the hell out of here!"
We experienced that while visiting our daughter in Iowa. Hubby and I had been left in charge of the farm while our daughter and son-in-law took the oldest grandchild to the doctor in Des Moines.
Hubby was comfortably stretched out in the recliner watching a golf match, when it started to rain. The rain became harder and harder then it began to sound even louder. We went to the door looking out on the back deck and discovered it was beginning to hail. The little flakes of ice were about the size of a fingernail but as we watched the rain changed entirely to hail. It looked like a snowstorm. Soon the deck was covered in white. Then we noticed that the hail covering the deck looked like it had small craters in it. In amazement we watched as hail stones as big as golf balls began to fall faster and faster, pounding the deck, literally exploding the smaller hail covering the deck out of the way. Almost as quickly, it was over. The cloud passed and the sun came out. The storm, which had arrived with no warning had lasted less than 10 minutes.
We ran to the door to check the damage. We stared in disbelief at the cars and truck left in the drive earlier. All were beaten and covered in golf ball sized dents with windshields and tail lights broken. The ground was covered ankle deep in leaves from the surrounding trees, the flower beds were beaten to a pulp, her little vegetable garden just gone, with not a leaf left of the beans, tomatoes and peppers. Flower pots on the deck were shattered. Then our gaze went to the corn field in front of the house. Where once had been rows of little green plants were now just stubs. The metal buildings were now sporting a coat of polka dots where the hail had blown the paint off. The huge plastic covered worm of silage so recently stored for winter feed looked like it had been blasted with a huge shot-gun. The plastic was just covered in holes.
Our son-in-law and daughter arrived home to utter devastation. He immediately took off to check the fields. He came back to report that his hay crop was beaten to the ground but the cows and calves were all accounted for. The corn was stripped of the leaves but if the growth nodes weren't damaged it could come back. Maybe. He also discovered that the hail storm had been extremely local...almost just their farm. Going a mile in any direction and you soon drove out of the damage area.
Looking around at the mess, he said, "It could have been worse. It wasn't a tornado and we could have had the tractors and planters here instead of at the other farm." He was right. We were safe and so were the megabucks expensive tractors and delicate planters. On a farm, cars, roofs, and buildings are secondary to the all important planting equipment.
I have to give my son-in-law credit. Not once did he ask "Why didn't you put some of these vehicles in the shed?" A question hubby would have been screaming at the top of his lungs. The truth is it was unbelievably vicious and fast.
When we left for home a few days later our daughter laughed and said as she hugged me, "You won't be crying when you leave this time. You'll be driving 90 miles an hour to get the hell out of here!"
Sunday, June 9, 2013
The Joys of Being a Farm Wife
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time visiting with a group of farm wives in Iowa. It was planting time so the men were spending long hours trying to get the corn and soybeans in the ground. The spring weather had been unusual, to say the least. Temperatures that week had soared to 90 degrees while just ten days before there had been 10 inches of snow on the ground. The farmers, knowing that rain would come, were planting until all hours of the night to get the seeds in the ground before it got too wet to get into the fields. During this time it becomes a female society. Everywhere you go you see women carrying on the daily chores of life with nary a man in sight. (Some of the women also work in the field, but obviously, I didn't get a chance to visit with them.)
I was enjoying chatting with the women while we were preparing dinner for the men, who would be taking a break to celebrate a fifth birthday. The child in question hadn't seen her daddy for several days, since he was getting in long after she was asleep and leaving long before she got up. They were planting the field next to the house, so they were taking a break to eat lunch and celebrate with birthday cake. Then back to the field. The conversation took a turn to the joys of being married to a farmer.
We discovered, for instance, that getting called to pick up parts entailed the same frustrations whether the machine in question was a huge planter or a two-row tobacco cultivator. No matter that the guys had called and assured us that the part was ready and waiting, only needing to be picked up, it never was that simple. Inevitably the parts manager would have a question. "Is it for the right disc or the left?" "Did he mean metric or US measurements?" "Did he want one or the pair?" We all agreed that cell phones came in pretty handy then. Or the instructions would be that the part would be left on the loading dock, just drive around back and pick it up. What they didn't tell her, one wife declared, was that she would have to unlatch a big bin only to discover 8 or 10 parts for different customers. Then she would have to dig through them and identify the one she needed. All of this on an hour detour with two kids in the car.
Another wife laughed and said that, for her, having company was the challenge. Their daughter had recently graduated from high school and in the local tradition they had thrown a large graduation party for family and friends. The plans and preparations had gone on for weeks before the big date. The house had been cleaned, food cooked, the yard manicured, tables had been set up and tents erected. What had hubby done while all this was going on? He washed his tractors! All the while, insisting that he was doing his part in getting ready. I laughed and agreed. Before our daughter's wedding my hubby was only concerned with the barn being clean. Another replied that at least they were there. Her farmer would decide at the last minute he had one chore that just had to be done, that would take until the party was half over to finish.
Laundry and the stinking messes that men can get into came into the conversation. My daughter chuckled about the night her hubby had managed to get covered with the smelly remains of a dead calf. Gagging he had called for her from the back door. He had stripped off his clothes and left them in the driveway and was yelling for SOAP!. "What kind?' she yelled back. "Anything that stinks good!" he yelled back. With no more ado he had started lathering and rinsing with the garden hose. He wanted to throw the clothes away but after being hosed down and airing for a day or two they washed up as good as new.
I remembered a time when hubby had been trying to get a cow in a working chute. Every time he would get her almost in she would back up and get out of the alley way. In desperation, he finally just crowded her up and put his chest right against her so she couldn't back up. With that, she lifted her tail and filled the top of his coveralls with warm, spring grass runny, manure. Within minutes it was dripping out of both pant legs and oozing out the sides. When I finally quit laughing, we had to hose him down before he could even get out of his clothes!
We all agreed that living with a farmer was a challenge. We all know that on a farm often the crops and animals will take precedence over family. However, we also know that these good men, who give their lives to caring for the land and the animals with such dedication are a very special breed. That the same love and devotion they give to their farming they return to their families 10 fold, by being loving, steadfast, dependable, devoted and dedicated spouses, parents, sons, and siblings. They are the salt of the earth.
One other thing the wives agreed on. We wouldn't change places with anyone.
I was enjoying chatting with the women while we were preparing dinner for the men, who would be taking a break to celebrate a fifth birthday. The child in question hadn't seen her daddy for several days, since he was getting in long after she was asleep and leaving long before she got up. They were planting the field next to the house, so they were taking a break to eat lunch and celebrate with birthday cake. Then back to the field. The conversation took a turn to the joys of being married to a farmer.
We discovered, for instance, that getting called to pick up parts entailed the same frustrations whether the machine in question was a huge planter or a two-row tobacco cultivator. No matter that the guys had called and assured us that the part was ready and waiting, only needing to be picked up, it never was that simple. Inevitably the parts manager would have a question. "Is it for the right disc or the left?" "Did he mean metric or US measurements?" "Did he want one or the pair?" We all agreed that cell phones came in pretty handy then. Or the instructions would be that the part would be left on the loading dock, just drive around back and pick it up. What they didn't tell her, one wife declared, was that she would have to unlatch a big bin only to discover 8 or 10 parts for different customers. Then she would have to dig through them and identify the one she needed. All of this on an hour detour with two kids in the car.
Another wife laughed and said that, for her, having company was the challenge. Their daughter had recently graduated from high school and in the local tradition they had thrown a large graduation party for family and friends. The plans and preparations had gone on for weeks before the big date. The house had been cleaned, food cooked, the yard manicured, tables had been set up and tents erected. What had hubby done while all this was going on? He washed his tractors! All the while, insisting that he was doing his part in getting ready. I laughed and agreed. Before our daughter's wedding my hubby was only concerned with the barn being clean. Another replied that at least they were there. Her farmer would decide at the last minute he had one chore that just had to be done, that would take until the party was half over to finish.
Laundry and the stinking messes that men can get into came into the conversation. My daughter chuckled about the night her hubby had managed to get covered with the smelly remains of a dead calf. Gagging he had called for her from the back door. He had stripped off his clothes and left them in the driveway and was yelling for SOAP!. "What kind?' she yelled back. "Anything that stinks good!" he yelled back. With no more ado he had started lathering and rinsing with the garden hose. He wanted to throw the clothes away but after being hosed down and airing for a day or two they washed up as good as new.
I remembered a time when hubby had been trying to get a cow in a working chute. Every time he would get her almost in she would back up and get out of the alley way. In desperation, he finally just crowded her up and put his chest right against her so she couldn't back up. With that, she lifted her tail and filled the top of his coveralls with warm, spring grass runny, manure. Within minutes it was dripping out of both pant legs and oozing out the sides. When I finally quit laughing, we had to hose him down before he could even get out of his clothes!
We all agreed that living with a farmer was a challenge. We all know that on a farm often the crops and animals will take precedence over family. However, we also know that these good men, who give their lives to caring for the land and the animals with such dedication are a very special breed. That the same love and devotion they give to their farming they return to their families 10 fold, by being loving, steadfast, dependable, devoted and dedicated spouses, parents, sons, and siblings. They are the salt of the earth.
One other thing the wives agreed on. We wouldn't change places with anyone.
Friday, June 7, 2013
The Streaker
I'm convinced that living in the country makes men do strange things. There is something about the open spaces and the lack of close neighbors that tend to make them forget their manners. There never was a farmer that could walk into a barn without having to "see a man about a dog" immediately. The same men teach their sons to "pee in the grass" when outdoors, then wonder why they "pee in the grass" off of second base in T-ball. Farm wives are facing an uphill battle in their fight to "civilize" our males.
A recent visit with a farming family revealed one wife's struggles to tame her hubby. It seems that back in their early years, hubby was a bit of a streaker.
At the time they were living in the old farmhouse on the home farm. Like a lot of old houses, the bathroom had been added on to the kitchen to consolidate the plumbing. Also, like most farm houses, the kitchen door was the one most often used by everyone coming to the house. (My front door is so seldom used that it swelled shut and no one knew it until a poor visitor knocked on it. We then had to run around the house and tell him to come to the back so we could let him in!)
The farmer in question had a habit of coming in dirty from the field and sliding straight into the bathroom to clean up. He would then "streak" through the house to the bedroom to get into clean clothes. The farmwife had cautioned him repeatedly that he needed to plan ahead and not just wander around in his birthday suit. However, he was younger then and not shy about flaunting the hard, toned muscles of the working man, so he continued his dash.
It so happens that the phone was located on the kitchen wall, just across from the bathroom. The farmer also had a habit of answering the phone by rushing out of the shower and grabbing it. The wife was getting pretty put out with having a naked man lounging in her kitchen chatting on the phone or grabbing a cookie on his way to jump into his jeans.
As would happen, he came in from the field one day dirty, hot and tired. He immediately went to the bathroom to clean away some of the accumulated dirt. Just about the time he got good and wet, the phone rang. Expecting a call, he quickly jumped out of the shower and ran across the kitchen to answer it, where he proceeded to lean against the counter and talk. The wife, signaled to the oldest daughter and told her to run out the front door and then knock loudly on the back door.
The knocking came, and with cheerful tones the wife called out "Maybelle how good to see you! What brings you out to this part of the county! Come in, come in. I'm sure I've got some pie left from lunch."
The farmer looked up in a panic. He was trapped. To get to the bathroom or the bedroom he had to cross in front of the back door. If his visitor took one step into the kitchen he was in plain sight. He looked frantically for something to cover himself with but all he had was the phone. In desperation he opened the cabinet door and tried to scrunch himself down behind the small door. All the while listening to the cheerful invitation to "come on in and sit down". Footsteps approached and his wife and daughter burst into giggles at the sight of him attempting to climb into the cabinet. With a sheepish grin, he realized he had been "had".
"That will teach you to strut around in your birthday suit!", the wife laughed.
He said later, that all he could think about was that Maybelle was the biggest gossip in the county and she would be running back to tell everyone about his kitchen "welcoming" if she had indeed walked through the door.
His family's laughter gave me the feeling that he didn't need Maybelle to spread the story....I was betting they had done a pretty good job without her.
A recent visit with a farming family revealed one wife's struggles to tame her hubby. It seems that back in their early years, hubby was a bit of a streaker.
At the time they were living in the old farmhouse on the home farm. Like a lot of old houses, the bathroom had been added on to the kitchen to consolidate the plumbing. Also, like most farm houses, the kitchen door was the one most often used by everyone coming to the house. (My front door is so seldom used that it swelled shut and no one knew it until a poor visitor knocked on it. We then had to run around the house and tell him to come to the back so we could let him in!)
The farmer in question had a habit of coming in dirty from the field and sliding straight into the bathroom to clean up. He would then "streak" through the house to the bedroom to get into clean clothes. The farmwife had cautioned him repeatedly that he needed to plan ahead and not just wander around in his birthday suit. However, he was younger then and not shy about flaunting the hard, toned muscles of the working man, so he continued his dash.
It so happens that the phone was located on the kitchen wall, just across from the bathroom. The farmer also had a habit of answering the phone by rushing out of the shower and grabbing it. The wife was getting pretty put out with having a naked man lounging in her kitchen chatting on the phone or grabbing a cookie on his way to jump into his jeans.
As would happen, he came in from the field one day dirty, hot and tired. He immediately went to the bathroom to clean away some of the accumulated dirt. Just about the time he got good and wet, the phone rang. Expecting a call, he quickly jumped out of the shower and ran across the kitchen to answer it, where he proceeded to lean against the counter and talk. The wife, signaled to the oldest daughter and told her to run out the front door and then knock loudly on the back door.
The knocking came, and with cheerful tones the wife called out "Maybelle how good to see you! What brings you out to this part of the county! Come in, come in. I'm sure I've got some pie left from lunch."
The farmer looked up in a panic. He was trapped. To get to the bathroom or the bedroom he had to cross in front of the back door. If his visitor took one step into the kitchen he was in plain sight. He looked frantically for something to cover himself with but all he had was the phone. In desperation he opened the cabinet door and tried to scrunch himself down behind the small door. All the while listening to the cheerful invitation to "come on in and sit down". Footsteps approached and his wife and daughter burst into giggles at the sight of him attempting to climb into the cabinet. With a sheepish grin, he realized he had been "had".
"That will teach you to strut around in your birthday suit!", the wife laughed.
He said later, that all he could think about was that Maybelle was the biggest gossip in the county and she would be running back to tell everyone about his kitchen "welcoming" if she had indeed walked through the door.
His family's laughter gave me the feeling that he didn't need Maybelle to spread the story....I was betting they had done a pretty good job without her.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
A Farm Wife's Lament
My Job
It's not my place to run the train.
The whistle I can't blow.
It's not my place to say how far
the train's allowed to go.
It's not my place to shoot off steam
nor even clang the bell.
BUT let the damn thing jump the track...
and see who catches hell!
Years ago we were traveling home from a week spent at a cattle show when I found this plaque. After a week of being the low man on the team, taking orders from everyone, including the cows, I thought it just about described my life.
Farm wives become accustomed to being at the beck and call of everyone on the farm. When hay is down or tobacco is being set she is expected to be everywhere with just the needed things (whether it be lunch, cool drinks, or baler parts) with no consideration to what else she may have on her schedule. My kids learned at an early age that the power lay with the farmers. "I'd love to help mom, but daddy needs me in the barn.", they would call as they left the house. I have actually caught them doing "chores" by sitting on a couple of feed buckets playing cards on a bale of hay. Important work.
Hubby was a master at passing through the kitchen and casually mentioning that he would have a couple of hands for dinner. (I once fed five men on two chicken breasts and a lot of cheese and tortillas. Show me a farm wife and I will show you a well stocked pantry ready to stretch a meal for additional hands.) He also was good at pausing to "request" that I come help with the tractor driving, since I wasn't busy--I guess a mountain of laundry and hands for dinner don't count as busy!
However, few farmers ever admit that their spouses know one thing about farming. Trust me I have had a crash course in farming but because I am the "little woman" I'm often not taken seriously. Nothing is more frustrating than coming up with a good idea only to have it laughed off by the men, then have the same idea pop back up later from a "male" as the best solution ever heard!
One area I have been accepted as an authority is when the cows are in labor. For some reason hubby just doesn't "get it". I realized he needed help early on when I wandered down to join him at the fence, "What are you doing?" "I'm watching that cow. Do you think she's calving?" he mused. I watched her obvious labor contractions for a few minutes and asked, "Uh, just what do you think she's doing?" "Well, she's acting a little funny but she's not quite due." he responded. With a snort, I replied, "Of course she is in labor and working hard. If she doesn't deliver in about 15 minutes you better get her in the barn and help her!" Fifteen minutes later we were walking her to the barn and fifteen after that we had pulled a dandy, big calf. "How did you know?" he asked. I just shook my head, not surprised at his denseness.
After all this is the same man that made me wait to go to the hospital to deliver our daughter until he had gone to the office to finish some paperwork. She was born barely thirty minutes after we arrived at the hospital. He thought it was great timing. The doctor thought he was nuts! I was just glad she wasn't born in the pickup truck.
It's not my place to run the train.
The whistle I can't blow.
It's not my place to say how far
the train's allowed to go.
It's not my place to shoot off steam
nor even clang the bell.
BUT let the damn thing jump the track...
and see who catches hell!
Years ago we were traveling home from a week spent at a cattle show when I found this plaque. After a week of being the low man on the team, taking orders from everyone, including the cows, I thought it just about described my life.
Farm wives become accustomed to being at the beck and call of everyone on the farm. When hay is down or tobacco is being set she is expected to be everywhere with just the needed things (whether it be lunch, cool drinks, or baler parts) with no consideration to what else she may have on her schedule. My kids learned at an early age that the power lay with the farmers. "I'd love to help mom, but daddy needs me in the barn.", they would call as they left the house. I have actually caught them doing "chores" by sitting on a couple of feed buckets playing cards on a bale of hay. Important work.
Hubby was a master at passing through the kitchen and casually mentioning that he would have a couple of hands for dinner. (I once fed five men on two chicken breasts and a lot of cheese and tortillas. Show me a farm wife and I will show you a well stocked pantry ready to stretch a meal for additional hands.) He also was good at pausing to "request" that I come help with the tractor driving, since I wasn't busy--I guess a mountain of laundry and hands for dinner don't count as busy!
However, few farmers ever admit that their spouses know one thing about farming. Trust me I have had a crash course in farming but because I am the "little woman" I'm often not taken seriously. Nothing is more frustrating than coming up with a good idea only to have it laughed off by the men, then have the same idea pop back up later from a "male" as the best solution ever heard!
One area I have been accepted as an authority is when the cows are in labor. For some reason hubby just doesn't "get it". I realized he needed help early on when I wandered down to join him at the fence, "What are you doing?" "I'm watching that cow. Do you think she's calving?" he mused. I watched her obvious labor contractions for a few minutes and asked, "Uh, just what do you think she's doing?" "Well, she's acting a little funny but she's not quite due." he responded. With a snort, I replied, "Of course she is in labor and working hard. If she doesn't deliver in about 15 minutes you better get her in the barn and help her!" Fifteen minutes later we were walking her to the barn and fifteen after that we had pulled a dandy, big calf. "How did you know?" he asked. I just shook my head, not surprised at his denseness.
After all this is the same man that made me wait to go to the hospital to deliver our daughter until he had gone to the office to finish some paperwork. She was born barely thirty minutes after we arrived at the hospital. He thought it was great timing. The doctor thought he was nuts! I was just glad she wasn't born in the pickup truck.
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