Farmhand Learning Curve

Last week we woke in the middle of the night to lightening flashing in the distance…no thunder, though. We hoped that maybe some rain would come our way. We hopped on the gator and drove out to the middle of a hay field and watched the sky, wishing to be caught in a downpour. No such luck. There we were: Cowboy fully dressed and me in pajamas and running shoes sitting in the peaceful grandeur of the night listening to the symphony of tree frogs, a hoot owl, and the whistle of a train some 10 miles away. We went quietly back to bed and I actually slept in till 7:30!! I’m not over the guilty feeling yet…I have spent the last several years getting up around 5:30.

Until now I’ve naively considered myself somewhat accomplished in many things. Though I knew IN THEORY about stuff you do on a farm like hookin’ up implements and gettin’ parts and bolts and nuts and things like hitch pins, lynch pins, cotter pins, grease zerks, I’ve really just been bumbling along these past few days. Go ahead and laugh at my blunders.

You already know about my wearing sandals to work, but I’ll include it just the same.

I shut myself on the wrong side of the gate…and had to unlatch, go through and relatch…all without the Cowboy seeing.

I sprayed myself in the face with the hose as I was washing out a bucket and again with the sprinkler when I was watering plants.

I put the gator in drive and gave it gas when I was looking behind me (shoulda been in reverse—didn’t hit anything…whew)

I’ve tripped over a board I had just laid on the ground, a chain, a hose, my own feet.

I pinched my finger in a lynch pin …. more like a lynch pinch

I took the air compressor to the field without the air chuck (the end that you put on the valve stem to air up a tire)….had to go allllll the way back to the shop and alllll the way back to the field. Got the eye-roll from the Cowboy. But I didn’t get the jaw-jut…which is far more severe. haha

You already know about my losing the bundle of wire out of the gator.

Even though I’m at the rise of the farmhand learning curve, I am so happy and content. I think the Cowboy is, too.