"Farmer Marie"

I think its official!  I am a farmer!!!

Right about 5 years into living here on our amazing hill, nestled in the rolling topography of southeastern Ohio, I became a true farmer yesterday.  Yep, I’ve had chickens off and on for 55 years.  I added goats and alpacas about 4 years ago.  I have been a gardener nearly my whole life.  Buttttt…..I was not, by my standards….a farmer yet.

Yesterday I began my adventure into creating hay bales.  I think that makes it official!  I have stacked bales, I have tossed bales, I have fed bales to my Barn Beasties but I did not CREATE them.  I am sure with much trepidation, Dave gave me a thorough lesson in the fine art of cutting the fields, the first step in the process.  Now, mind you, he has only done a bit of this himself last Fall when we acquired our own, mini-round bale equipment.  David is OCD to a pretty high level.  When he does something it is after much pondering, planning and perfecting.  So, for him to allow me (after much whining and cajoling to be allowed) to attend Hay Cutting 100 class with him, it was a momentous occasion.

 Have I mentioned he was a science teacher when we met?  He is, for the most part, an amazing instructor.  He has the ability to recognize if a student isn’t grasping something and shift how he presents the material.  What he does lack is the ability to grasp that there is more than one way of doing something which SHOULD be PERFECTLY FINE.  But, I digress.  In this case, I did my best to listen to all the nuisances of sitting just so, aligning the point of the angle on the black thingie on the bucket of the tractor to align with the middle of the left-side tire-created track from your last pass when on a straight path but putting the right front tire IN said tract when making a left hand turn and something else that I blessedly didn’t have to do if making a right hand turn as I can’t remember that instruction.  Then there was the part about making a loop out past the tip of the cutting area when it had come to a narrow point. 

OK, part of this took me back 50 years when my father taught me to drive.  On highway 80 from Des Moines, Iowa headed towards Nebraska…..a detail to assure you it was VERY straight……. He put me in the driver’s seat at 13 years old.  “Now, Beth, you are going to lean just slightly to the left.  Line up the crease in the hood (gold, Impala sedan) with the white line on the side of the road.  That will keep you in the center of the lane.”  I do not remember him telling me to also look forward for obstacles in the road which my David did. Ya know, “watch for deer, rabbits, branches, things.”  I find it interesting that it was my father, David, 50 years ago and now it is my partner, David.  

Today Dave will rake the hay.  Turning it to allow it to dry to the correct level before baling.  I will NOT be helping with that as I have massage clients coming. Running in the house covered in sweat embedded with chaff, seeds and a wide array of bugs to give someone a massage then back out to the field for my fun is just not in the cards. Blessedly I believe I have found some sturdy helpers to come later this week to retrieve 100s of bales from the fields and get them properly stacked in the barn for us.