Unsettled.
It’s been a long strange week.
Various emotionally laced relationships disrupted. It’s hot. People losing their jobs. People failing out of school. Dad was sent to the hole, briefly. People breaking up. It’s been humid and hot. It’s hard to sleep well. It had been a long time since I’d been in any real relationship. Recently I met a local girl. My farm responsibilities are piling up. Fences to mend. Barns to re-roof. Hooves to trim. Storm-felled trees to clean up. Hay to move. A house to paint. Another house the needs to be renter-ready soon. And it’s hot.
Gnarls Barkley tell me there’s a storm coming. But it seems to just be boiling on the horizon. Not coming any closer, just sitting.
Up till now I had been pretty secure in the fact that I’ve been doing well for myself as a farmer. Things are breaking, but I’m not too far behind. The first cutting of hay was completed. I found a car. My beef brought in more money than expected. Less baby calves died this year, than in the previous ones. No hunters had harassed me in the woods. I could do this shit.
Up till now.
My dad called on Monday night. In his last letter he asked how many bales I got out of first cutting. But I had told him in the last letter I wrote. 166.
He had thought that that number was the number of bales I got out of the wheat hay fields. Three of eight fields. This was bad.
I need about 800 - 900 bales of hay entering winter, it turns out. Five to six of those need to come out of first cutting. I don’t even have a third of that. No one knows why.
So here’s my first real problem. And it’s been roiling in my stomach all week on top of all this. My mom tells me that I shouldn’t worry, that it’s not my fault. Firstly, I don’t know that this isn’t my fault. Even if it isn’t, it’s my fucking responsibility. Somehow things went wrong.
Various emotionally laced relationships disrupted. It’s hot. People losing their jobs. People failing out of school. Dad was sent to the hole, briefly. People breaking up. It’s been humid and hot. It’s hard to sleep well. It had been a long time since I’d been in any real relationship. Recently I met a local girl. My farm responsibilities are piling up. Fences to mend. Barns to re-roof. Hooves to trim. Storm-felled trees to clean up. Hay to move. A house to paint. Another house the needs to be renter-ready soon. And it’s hot.
Gnarls Barkley tell me there’s a storm coming. But it seems to just be boiling on the horizon. Not coming any closer, just sitting.
Up till now I had been pretty secure in the fact that I’ve been doing well for myself as a farmer. Things are breaking, but I’m not too far behind. The first cutting of hay was completed. I found a car. My beef brought in more money than expected. Less baby calves died this year, than in the previous ones. No hunters had harassed me in the woods. I could do this shit.
Up till now.
My dad called on Monday night. In his last letter he asked how many bales I got out of first cutting. But I had told him in the last letter I wrote. 166.
He had thought that that number was the number of bales I got out of the wheat hay fields. Three of eight fields. This was bad.
I need about 800 - 900 bales of hay entering winter, it turns out. Five to six of those need to come out of first cutting. I don’t even have a third of that. No one knows why.
So here’s my first real problem. And it’s been roiling in my stomach all week on top of all this. My mom tells me that I shouldn’t worry, that it’s not my fault. Firstly, I don’t know that this isn’t my fault. Even if it isn’t, it’s my fucking responsibility. Somehow things went wrong.
posted by Lord of the Barnyard at 12:53 PM
4 Comments:
Hey Drew, don't get down. All the accomplishments you listed are really good things. We'll get to late August soon and temperatures fit for human beings will return to Ohio.
While a hay shortage may be your responsibility, you're mom is right, it's not your fault. Farmers have to play the hand Nature deals us. She may have shortchanged you. Gene Logsdon says that farmers soon learn that there is no such thing as "Mother Nature" - rather she is "Old Bitch Nature." Anyway, here are a couple thoughts:
1.Does your baler adjust for bale size? If so, is it possible that you made bigger bales this year than your dad did last year? A 5' diameter bale contains over 50% more hay than a 4' bale of equal length. That doesn't sound right but it is (pi-r-squared and all that). Maybe you have more hay than you realize.
2. Do you do much winter grazing of stockpiled forage? I don't have a lot of experience with this but I plan on learning more this winter. I've done quite a bit of reading about it. Of course, I don't have any experience at all with a farm the size of yours but it's basically the same thing everything is just bigger. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help, advise, etc.
you can still do this shit.
things went wrong, but you can fix them. time passes. everything will work out.
Farming ain't no meritocracy, that's for sure. It's clear you're working hard and doing your best to work smart.
We took in a lot more hay than usual this year -- and don't know why, either.
Lotb:
I wish I knew how to help. I'll keep reading, keep commenting, keep sending good thoughts, o.k.? You midwestern farmers are a dying breed, and you make all us city folk proud.
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