Real Farming

The first few weeks of real farming have been like the first few weeks of junior high track. Exciting. Character building. Challenging to the point of soreness. I hope that just like Jr high track, I'll do more, I'll get in the groove, I'll get used to everything and it will be a manageable, daily challenge. I'm sure there will be days where I feel like I'm running 800 meters with not as much capacity as I'd like, but then life's like that!

A couple weeks ago, dad and I went to rent a boom truck from a neighbor to put up a pivot. The truck hadn't been run for probably a year and it took us about 20 minutes of jumper cables and starter fluid to get that thing running. As I hopped up in the cab to give it some gas, I saw 1000 little mice droppings and an incredibly rusty/dirty interior. I wouldn't have expected anything less of a truck sitting for a year, but I wasn't too intent on meeting any of the previous inhabitants.

As things always go, I looked down to see a mouse scurrying into the foot pedals. It wasn't an option to jump out. So I stayed in with a prayer that I wouldn't see too many more. I said to myself, "Just pretend you're Cinderella - mice are your friends mice, mice are your friends! Lets just say I wasn't too sad to switch dad for the pick up. I couldn't even write all the crazy, funny, stressful, satisfying experiences I've had since starting to be a real farm girl.

In the first few weeks I've:

• Worked on budgets and income statements

                    My home desk                                               My truck desk

• Written checks and made spreadsheets

 

• Jumpstarted trucks
• Helped to move pivots

• Shoveled out a wheat truck
• Played nurse fingers in mainline is not a pretty sight

• Quizzed my dad for hours
• Almost flipped myself over my own 4wheeler



A pano of my tractor office

• Driven semis, 10-wheelers and tractors

• Picked rocks
• Moved Cows

• Planted wheat and spuds

• Run to town for parts so many times that they expect me daily
• Helped fix machinery

• Vaccinated and branded cows

• Met so many new people that I can't remember them all
• Done more PR and HR then I'd ever imagined

• Exercised my weak Spanish ability - daily!
• Helped with the investigation and insurance of our equipment arson

• Worked on pivots

• Helped fix broken mainline
• Practiced accounting, agronomy and irrigation
  

  

  My exhausted work day, wind blown look

  

  The Sunday - I get to be a real person transformation

Please bless that I learn quickly! I hope my brain will expand so that I can remember all the things I'm supposed to know to run this race well!