Picking Up Soybeans

Today started off with a dense fog, and it remained overcast all day.  The humidity kept it at that weird temperature where too many layers left you too warm and removing layers felt you not quite warm enough.  Over the weekend we did manage to accumulate about an inch of rain, though, so all is well.  We fed the west and south yards, sorted out a few cull ewes to sell tomorrow, and put the Mac skidloader back together.  Because the weather didn't threatened anything serious, but it so muddy we couldn't do a whole lot, dad and I went to Peoria to pick up our order of soybeans.  It was a nice ride and we had a nice visit with our distant relatives (who own the company where we purchased the seed).  It has been years since I've seen them, and we exchanged a few family stories before loading the trailer.  We ordered 120 bags, which equals two pallets.  Dad and I unloaded the pallets at the Bradford farm, so I helped move about three tons of seed today.  It felt great!  When we finally got back, we finished up with chores and concluded our day.

The Summer of Swans

Before the first of the year, a friend and I were discussing new year's resolutions.  Something he has tried to do the last few years is "x Things to Do Before I am x."  The first x is usually one greater than the second x.  I thought it was an interesting thing to try, so I have a list of 25 Things to Do Before I am 24.  Some of these goals I have already utterly failed at (like removing all fast food from my diet; having a job within walking distance from the Gizmo was not exactly conducive to that when stress or socialization ensues), while others I have done remarkably well with (like making all of my own greeting cards; so far so good!).  One thing I have on the list (something sparked by my roommate at Tillers) is to read at least one Newbery Award winning book per week.  These include winners and medalists.  There is quite a list since the award has been around since 1922, but since they are children's books, I figured that would be doable even when I don't finish the entire list this year.  To be honest, I haven't counted how many are on the list, nor have I counted how many I have read, but to give you some idea, the list fills 13 1/4 pages of a Word document.  While my focus has been on the books I haven't read, I hope to reread some of the ones I read in elementary school, but being in a different place in life gives me such an appreciation for the content and writing in these books.  I finished The Summer of Swans by Betsy Byars today and it got me thinking.

The Summer of Swans, Newbery Medal Winner in 1971, is the story of the Godfrey children who live with their aunt in West Virginia.  Fourteen-year-old Sara, on the cusp of adolescence, has spent the summer critiquing her entire existence (a flat face, too large of feet, not looking like the blonde models in the magazines) and the result is a confused and angry girl filled with angst.  Her ten-year-old brother Charlie had a fever when he was three years old which resulted in brain damage and his inability to speak.  When Sara takes Charlie down to the lake to see the swans, he sees a grace and serenity in them that he wants for himself.  That evening, after everyone has gone to sleep, Charlie makes his way toward the lake to find the swans again, but instead gets lost in the woods.  The remainder of the story traces Sara's search for Charlie and how she interacts with a few of her peers during this search.  There were several things I noticed while reading (particularly with regards to the other Newbery winners I have recently read).  This is probably the third or fourth Newbery book I've read so far that is set in West Virginia or in regions where strip-mining has occurred.  The harsh differences between hilltops that have been depleted of all life because of the strip-mining and the beauty of the forests still intact usually play a pivotal role in the protagonist's development.  For Sara, it was from atop of one of these depleted hilltops that she started to realize how selfish she had been all summer, yet in this very real and terrifying situation, she didn't have any tears to shed.  Once she could look beyond herself, she finally heard Charlie's frightened screams and located him in a ravine.

This is also the third or fourth book I've read recently that dealt with a special needs character and how that character interacted with his or her sibling(s).  While I don't usually relate exactly with the characters because we are in different phases of life, I still vividly recall how these characters and situations reflected my own experiences during adolescence.  With all these books, though, I relate most powerfully with those that have the special needs characters.  This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, and it certainly doesn't to me, because of my own brother, but part of me really wishes I would have discovered these books when I was growing up.  To be fair, the other book that really, really hit home was a 2005 Honor Book Al Capone Does My Shirts, so it wasn't published in my childhood, but it still would have been nice.  I say that because it would have been helpful to not feel so alone with this particular element in my life.  Certainly, I had my sister who could also understand how difficult it sometimes was to have a special needs sibling, and we weren't the only ones in school who had siblings with learning disabilities, but each disability is different.  I know that each INDIVIDUAL with a disability is different, so there is only so much a person can relate to in your specific situation, but within my own class, there was only one person whose brother had a disability.  Her brother was a little person.  But there really wasn't anyone who could fully understand having a sibling you couldn't have a "normal" conversation with.  A sibling who would attract lots of attention when out in public because crowds made them uncomfortable. While I don't do this very often, I will have to give my public high school credit, while there were the kids that teased the special ed classes or were real jerks in their interactions with these kids, the majority of my peers and classmates were either politely indifferent or very nice.  I know very few people picked on my classmate's brother because everyone was friends with him (he was a normal kid except for his height, so it was easier for people to look past his physical size) and because my brother didn't go to school with me, there were very few instances where people said anything about it.  Those few times found someone on the other side of my sharp tongue or a punch in the arm, which may have stopped people from saying anything around me specifically, but I do believe that most people were genuinely respectful of my brother.  Yet having a special needs brother became one of the things that separated me from my peers.  It became something as crucial to my developing a personal identity as farming was.

Now think about that for a minute, everyone has those things that set them apart, those things they clung to so as to become their own person, and my two things directly involved the lives of others.  Think about the things you clung to...how many of you can say that the things that made you different were the things that demanded maturity, responsibility, and the lives of others?  Perhaps more people than I realize, since my view is obviously subjective, but it was an epiphany of sorts today.  I have spent my entire life defining myself by my family.  I suppose there ought to be little wonder why I suffered from and still often suffer from a low self-esteem.  A person can be connected with their family, and I believe ought to be connected to their family, but not so exclusively connected that they don't recognize their own individuality.  Without an ability to pick out what is distinctly you how can you build an identity?  No matter how stable a family foundation is, that foundation supports a specific structure - a structure that uses what was already there; a structure that requires similar building materials and blueprints in order for that structure to stand.  It doesn't give you much of a chance to think and build outside of the box.  While your family ought to at least be a part of your foundation (and I think it is for everyone, which makes its presence not nearly as important as the question of whether or not the "family stone" is the strongest or weakest part of that foundation), there has to be other things to make up that foundation.  So here I am, at twenty-three, trying to identify what is in my foundation, what stones I need to rearrange, what stones I don't want part of my foundation at all, what needs to be a part of it.  Despite my maturing at a young age and understanding responsibility early on, I am starting to think I missed some crucial phases of my development.  Or at least, went through them so quickly that I missed some of the important moments.  Much of this was self-imposed, I realize, which more than anything, probably makes it worse.  Yet, everyday is a learning experience and needs to be realized to its fullest, and I'm doing it.  Or at least, trying to my best ability to do it.  Better late than never, right?

Rain and Grinding

The promise of rain came true as of midnight.  We got between half an inch and an inch.  It was very exciting!  Dad feels much better about the corn now that it's sitting in moisture.  Germination shouldn't be too much of a worry, so long as we start to warm up.  Today was once again another February day in April.  The highs only reached into the lower '50s and there was an east wind from 10-20 mph consistently throughout the day.  This morning we fiddled with our Dixon lawnmower because one of the front tires wasn't holding air.  Luckily, the dealer down the road carried the inner-tube we needed, so all that is taken care of.  We also had to call the vet out for one of the steers in the west yard.  He's about, oh, 700-800 pounds and had a rectal prolapse.  The doc numbed the area and stitched around the anus.  It's sort of hard to explain the procedure, but basically, he wants to encourage scar tissue to form because there really isn't anything you can do to "fix" prolapsing.  For those of you who don't know, when anything prolapses, it means the insides are coming out.  This happens more commonly after a birth, when the entire uterus starts pushing out and the vet has to come and try to get everything back in where it's supposed to, stitch it up so there is enough scar tissue built up to prevent the prolapsing from happening again, and that's all they can do.  We are to keep the stitches in for ten days, then dad will remove them.  I'm sure I'll be around to see that done.  It won't be a pretty site because the area will be really swollen and the steer will be less than cooperative despite being in the head chute, but this needed to be done.  The afternoon was spent grinding corn and hay.  Dad helped me with the corn this time around because we had to install the auger in the silo differently than it was and it wasn't being cooperative.  We unloaded two loads in the loft of the feed house and left one load in the grinder for feeding the cows at the home place.  We ground hay with the tub grinder.  So basically it's this huge iron tub with hammers at the bottom that smash down and grind the big, round bales.  It's powered by the tractor PTO and it takes, I think, 150 RPMs to run.  There is a tire that has to have 50 psi that turns the iron on the bottom of the tub and makes the tub move.  It was pretty neat to watch, though I kept my distance from the tractor because it was growling so much.  We ought to have enough hay ground for the rest of the week, though.  We got through eight bales, I think.  Despite there being unexpected hiccups throughout this dreary day, it was relatively productive.

Errands and Shuttle

Today felt like February, with a slightly less intense wind than that of February.  Still, though, it was quite brisk walking around.  After feeding the west yard this morning, I went to the elevator to pick up a few bags of insecticide and helped dad replace a light bulb on the tractor.  I also had to stop by an implement dealer down the road to get a few parts.  Both of these errands went quite smoothly.  It was helpful that dad introduced me to all the guys a few weeks ago; they remembered me.  As for the implement dealer, the parts guy is SUPER nice, so that was no problem at all.  This afternoon dad drove the planter up with a tractor and I followed behind in the truck and pulled the harrow.  After we got the equipment sorted around, we stopped by the John Deere dealer and picked up a few parts for the planter.  When we got home, we fed the south lot and did the normal chores.  There promises to be rain yet again tonight, but none of these forecasts have proven true.  We'll have to wait and see.

Cemetery and Clean Up

It was a beautiful day today.  It reached almost 70 degrees and had a nice wind from probably 10-15 mph.  After walking up to water the stock cows and the ewes, dad and fed the south lot before I went to help mom mow and weed-eat the township cemetery.  Our family has been the groundskeepers for this cemetery since my sister was in high school.  When my sister no longer did it, I did it, and when I wasn't here, my parents mowed and weed-eated it.  The cemetery is located about half a mile from my house, so it's convenient to get to and work in.  This afternoon I did some odd jobs that have been needing done.  I put oil in the Mac skidloader, cleaned out old oil buckets, and picked up the barnyard.  I also looked at the corn planter with dad for a bit as he explained how some of the different parts worked.  I'll have to examine the manual and other pieces of literature dad has on it to get a real clear sense, and once I actually work the machine and see how it works, things will make sense to me.  Still, it's nice to go over these things with dad.  Dad is really great about explaining things in a different way if you don't understand it the first time.  There's so much to learn, but it will be nice to learn it from my dad.  So, yeah, today was a good, productive day.

Early-week Musings

One thing that I have noticed is that the best thinking happens while driving a machine doing a repetitive and fairly mindless task.  For example, I planned my entire honors exhibit on the back of a lawn mower in the summer before my sophomore year.  While on the harrow this morning I realized something - I really have come a long way.  Despite my active participation in farming throughout my life, there were two things that I never cared to do and avoided at all costs - driving the tractor (with the exception of square baling) and working cattle.  The hesitation in doing these two tasks are a direct result of two very powerful memories from my childhood.  I remember sitting on my dad's lap when I was probably six years old while he was driving the tractor down the driveway.  Being the eager and inquisitive child that I was, I asked if I could drive.  He let me.  I took hold of the wheel and he let go.  Well, within seconds of my taking hold, we got dangerously close to the fence line.  He took back the wheel before we hit, but that experience scared me.  Not because I was afraid for my life or anything, but because I was afraid my dad would be angry with me. I was afraid of doing something wrong if I were to try it again.  And that by making that mistake I would be causing anger or frustration for everyone.  As for working cattle, my sister had bucket calves for a 4-H project for most of the ten years she was in the organization.  The youngest age you can show livestock for our 4-H club was eight, so my sister was eight years old when she had her first calf and I was four.  I was one of those annoying little sisters that wanted to do everything my big sister did.  So naturally, I wanted to go outside and help my sister with her bucket calf.  I don't remember exactly if Sweetheart licked me or mooed in my ear or what, but whatever that calf did freaked me out.  Remember, four years are still pretty small.  That baby calf was still a whole lot bigger than I was and whatever happened scared me so much that I didn't want to work with cattle for years and years after that.  Honestly, I didn't start to feel comfortable around cattle until late high school.  My parents started purchasing about 20 calves or so a year (and have continued to do so), and those calves helped pay for my education.  Therefore I felt obligated to help in the care for those animals.  The first year I did it begrudgingly.  At least I wasn't afraid of how big they were.  Yet, now, what am I doing?  I am walking among our cattle everyday.  I can turned my back on our steers and not feel the least bit afraid.  I'm cautious, to be sure, because you never know with animals, but I'm not worried something will happen to me.  Heck, at Tillers, I was yoking up two 2,500 pound steers and driving them with a crop.  And now look at me with tractor driving; I drive the feed wagon for the west yard almost daily and have spent about twelve hours with the harrow over the last two days.  It just amazes me how powerful my memories (and the emotions affiliated with those memories) are.  I know my emotions drive me.  I am an ISFJ for the Myers Briggs test.  Most of my life is dictated by emotions, perceptions, concrete thought, and consistency rather than the objective, logical, abstract thought, and spontaneity.  Despite my knowing this, however, I was still rather pleased with myself as I drove along the field and realized just how much fear and doubt I have overcome in my life.  And that thought kept me happy all day long.

Just the Harrow and Me

Today was a beautiful day.  While it started off a little cool, it warmed up nicely to just around 70 degrees.  It was mostly sunny and a light wind of 10-15 mph.  Our neighbor came back today to finish cleaning out the barn at home and to clean out one of the barns at my place.  Dad and I were in the field all day, he on the planter and me on the harrow.  It is easy work, though getting jostled around in a tractor cab for hours at a time does get old.  I have accelerated my speed to High 2, which is about as fast as dad goes, though I don't open the throttle all the way.  Nevertheless, I was making very good progress today and managed to get all the fields that I was assigned done before 6 p.m.  We are in desperate need of rain, though.  Everything is SO DRY.  There is so much dust flying when I harrow, I sometimes lose track of where I've been.  There is a chance of rain tomorrow, so hopefully it happens.

Corn Planting

Well, it's official, the Spiegels have begun planting corn for 2012.  My dad got the planter out this afternoon.  Knowing that we were going to do this today, we fed the stock cows and replacement heifers a bale of hay each, fed the west yard and south yard early on today.  I fed the west yard, and it was so exciting, something clicked.  I kept the distance between the tractor tire and the bunks almost totally consistent and I didn't spill any feed!  I spilled some when I backed up, but that's the be expected.  The other exciting thing today was that I backed up the manure spreader into the lot, and it didn't take 10 minutes!  Probably close to 10 minutes, but I made it through the gate hole without hitting anything!  Yay!  Dad and I didn't haul manure today; it was a project for one of our neighbors who helps out occasionally.  Dad set me up on the harrow to prep all the ground while he got the planter ready.  I bonded with that machine today.  I was on it for, oh, five hours today.  And I drove in high gear this time because I had a lot to get done.  There is something to be said for making yourself comfortable with a machine because you've got stuff to do!  There wasn't time to diddle around in low gear today.  And you know what?  While going faster demands a faster response time, you just adjust to it.  I mean, I drove by marking flags with this huge harrow and managed to only hit three all afternoon.  I was actually quite good at getting very close to the flags without hitting them.  Being in high gear didn't change that.  I also helped my mom and brother plant potatoes today.  It was a good day.  Hopefully things just keeping on clicking!

On Community, Fear, and Family

There are many things I am currently reflecting.  Unfortunately for you all, none of them are developed enough for me to share in this venue.  And in this particular instance, my writing it all out on a blog would only create more internal upheaval, so it's best I not go there.  However, there were two comments made this last week that have some interesting food for thought.  Both of them are somehow related to family or community.

Over the last few weeks I have been visiting a chiropractor which has proven quite helpful with a problem I've had since, well pretty near elementary school, actually.  He is a very nice man who utilizes the latest technology rather than the old-fashioned manual manipulations.  He is the only one in my area (or at least in Kewanee) that uses this method.  During my visit this week, he mentioned how it was nice to see a young, educated person stay in the area.  His own daughter sought to pursue her career for elementary education in Washington state.  She had spent some time teaching in the Chicago Public School system, which was what she thought she really wanted, but found this other school out in Washington and relocated.  He observed how young people don't like to stay in the area because of the limited opportunities, yet wouldn't these opportunities be created if there were some people who stayed to create them.  How can an area develop without these sorts of educated individuals willing to create businesses that provide opportunities or introduce ideas that encourage growth?  If children from non-urban areas who earn an education continue to move to urban areas for the lifestyle or to reach professional goals, where does that leave these non-urban areas?  It leaves them in the hands of the small segment of the population that does have some level of higher education or to the majority of the population that doesn't.  It's playing into a vicious cycle where certain areas will be developed to meet the needs of the educated while others that have the potential to meet those needs can't reach that potential because there's no expectation to do so.  It's an issue of supply and demand.  Without a demand of young, educated individuals to create businesses in an area, there won't be any.

Does this mean I'm going to feel inclined to stay in my area even if I decide farming isn't what I want to do?  Not necessarily.  I'm only suggesting that it is an interesting consideration that people my age don't necessarily consider.  As we graduate from college and desperately seek employment, we notice the trend in where the jobs are.  Some of us are willing to relocate to these urban centers sometimes hundreds of miles from home.  There are others of us who are not.  Sometimes it is a matter of financial stability.  Sometimes it is how despite a person being willing to relocate because they feel stifled at home, no jobs have opened up yet and it is financial suicide to move to a particular locale without that necessary employment first.  And sometimes it is purely a matter of fear.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of failure.  Fear of growing up.  Fear of success.  "Fear of success," you might be asking yourselves.  Why would anyone be afraid of success?  Success is a good thing.  Earning success by honest means, by using your own intelligence and skills, should be something everyone aspires to.  And success is defined differently by every individual.  But if achieving that success requires you grow and act and think in ways that separate you from the life you know, people can be afraid of it.  They are afraid of what the implications of that success are.  That they are no longer accepted into the community that raised them.  That they are no longer the person they hoped to become.  Yet they enjoy the success that brought these changes.  I realize that there is a very fine line here because if you did earn your success than these changes would have happened at your own prompting or at least had been accepted during the process.  Still, I don't think it is difficult to fear success.  And once that kind of fear, founded or not, takes hold, there are problems.  Fear can be a healthy thing.  Largely, I think it's because that at some point, it pushes you into action.  Your body cannot function on fear alone.  It overloads your systems.  When these other systems start to feel this, something in you finally takes hold and gives you a big slap in the face.  You get tired of living in fear.  Living in fear is exhausting, emotionally and physically.  At some point, you start to realize that taking whatever risk you were afraid to take is better than this constant exhaustion.  It's just a matter of whether you have to hit rock bottom before you have this realization.  Sometimes you do.  Sometimes you see what's coming and decide to act before it happens.  It depends on the person and their situation.

Well, I guess this became something it wasn't meant to be.  Looks like I did need to think some things through via the blogosphere.  The second thought I had this week related more directly with family.  It is about new legislation that would prevent farms from employing anyone under the age of 16.  If this law passed, anyone below the age of 16 couldn't operate any machinery, work with livestock, or work with chemicals.  Only this last is one I agree with.  The question comes from the small, family farmer.  What about our teaching our children values?  Teaching a work ethic?  Understanding the value of a honest day's work?  Needing to work and earn what you get?  What about organizations like 4-H and FFA who teach children and young adults leadership skills?  So many kids work with livestock projects in 4-H and FFA and those projects give them savings for college.  Do people not realize that if you work with your animal, get grand champion or reserve grand champion at the 4-H fair and decide to sell your animal at the auction, you get thousands of dollars?  Most kids put that money in savings and have a nice nest egg by the time they get to college.  It is especially true of kids who do the show circuit.  What about family farms whose survival depends on every member of that family contributing?  There is no harm in teaching a 14-year-old to drive in an empty field, then let them move machinery from point A to point B once they learn how.  Yes, farming is dangerous.  Yes, there are certain tasks that kids shouldn't do.  But if you are talking about the family farm (which is mostly who you are dealing with because large corporate businesses really couldn't legally hire anyone younger than 16 not to mention the fact that having a valid driver's license is a must for those kind of farms), most parents are not going to knowingly endanger their children.  My dad never let my sister or I work in a silo or bin or work with chemicals or climb a silo or drive certain equipment.  Safety was always first.  And I would suspect that 90% of all family farmers feel the same way and act appropriately.  Sigh.  This legislation is still under debate, but I feel strongly enough that I intend to write to my representative.  I just can't see how this would work, not to mention how it would be enforced.  Unless a farm is acting in such a way that lives are in danger (that goes for animal lives as well), the government has no business telling us how to get our work done.  What are they going to do, have inspectors come and record whether a 14-year-old halters their yearling steer for the 4-H show?  Really?  How do you think that would work?  There is a place for regulations, and this doesn't seem to be one of them.

Oats for the Feedhouse

This morning was quite cold and overcast.  It was supposed to rain today, but it didn't.  We really need a good inch or two rain in the next few days.  The ground is SO DRY!  After chores this morning, I refilled the metal tub in the feedhouse with oats.  I think it took six skidloader buckets, but I lost track.  I was in the zone of scooping oats, driving the skidloader, unloading, and loading again.  It was fairly easy work, though.  I mean, I can feel my biceps growing and the dull pain is very satisfying, actually.  After two weeks, I'm definitely stronger (which isn't surprising at all, but still) and it makes me happy.  After dinner, I helped mom load twelve chickens to take to the sale barn (eleven hens and one rooster).  The rest of the afternoon, I had off, so caught up on projects in my house once again.  Very easy day today.

Sheep Shearing, Beaver Dams, and Socialization

Today was a glorious day of about 70 degrees with winds 20-25 mph.  It was slightly overcast this morning, making it the perfect weather for sheep shearing.  I say that because our shearers were located where the cross breeze blew through the barn and the clouds kept the temperatures down.  For anyone who doesn't have an experience with shearing, it is hard, hot work, and doing it in less-than-ideal conditions, while doable, make it an even more brutal task.  Our shearer hails from northern Illinois in the Forreston area.  This man has a wide radius of clientele, traveling into southern Wisconsin, over to Iowa and Minnesota, and further south in Illinois than Monmouth.  He is about dad's age, so really feels the shearing in his back, but it is extremely difficult to find shearers of any kind, let alone young ones.  He and his wife both came and she also shears.  There were only 30 ewes and 1 ram, so it took about four hours, though it would have taken considerably less time if we hadn't socialized.  I have to say, I think that everyone should observe a conversation that takes place between farmers.  You will be amazed at the stories, what they know about their neighbors (not to mention people in other areas), and the wide range of knowledge in different areas.  For example, the four of us (the two shearers, dad, and I) talked about everything from gardening to equipment to how young people aren't willing to put in an honest day's work to the specifics on various individuals farming practices.  Yes, this conversation may be purely agriculturally-based, but the range these sorts of conversations between farmers still astounds me.  And because I've listened to these conversations my entire, I learned the language and picked up on concepts purely through osmosis.  The shearer is a fun guy, though, and he definitely loves to talk.

As for the process, our shearers use electric razors, in case anyone had any doubts.  They put carpet down and mount the motor for the razors with a 2x4 on the wall.  There is also a bag holder that stands about 6 feet tall.  They use large burlap sacks for the wool.  Except for second cuts, they pretty much keep the fleece in one piece.  They start by sitting the sheep on its rump and shear the underbelly and around the udder.  Then they shear around the backside.  From there they make a cut up the neck, go around the ears, the top of the head, then they move down and/or across the back, turning the animal as necessary.  Because our sheep aren't a wool breed (though polypay wool is decent), we aren't particular about second cuts or anything like that.  So long as the work gets done, all is well.  Dad and I helped catch the sheep and keep the process going.  I am not very good at catching the ewes.  I managed to get one, but that was about it.  At Tillers I managed to and I even got to turn them (as Tillers' shearer guided me), but that was also in a smaller area with smaller animals.  I did manage to hit my hand against the manger in the process, so I have a lovely bruise forming right now.  To be useful, though, I put the fleeces in the bag as they finished them.  At least I could help somehow.

After a late dinner, we went back to the silo farm and I got started grinding feed.  Mom came over to let us know that a man was coming over to dig out two beaver dams we had in one of our creeks.  I've met this guy before; he has all the large backhoes, diggers, and loaders and if we ever need something larger than a skidloader for excavation work, he's the one we call.  He had his backhoe and he, his two hired men, dad, and I went to creek and I saw him evict some beavers.  It was really fascinating to see what materials the beavers collected for the dams and it's incredible to see how big they are, and just how much water those dams stopped.  It's good to have the dams out and return the natural flow of the creek again.  While he was here, we also had the guy level out one spot in one of our pastures where we intend to put a culvert.  Because this man also travels a fair bit for his work, he also has some interesting stories and lots of knowledge about the area, not that he got all fired up the way the shearer did.  Still, there was a lot of socialization today.  It was a nice break from routine.

The remainder of the afternoon/early evening was spent grinding three loads of corn (so about 6 tons) to put in the feed house.  We also fed the west yard.  Yeah, I'm still a rookie.  I had been getting better with the tractor and wagon, but I must have spoken too soon.  I missed a fair bit today, so had to go back and shovel the feed into the bunks.  Maybe someday I'll get the hang of it.  But, yeah, today was good, and tomorrow we might get the corn planter out!

Calves, Spray, and Harrow

This morning when I walked up to check on the stock cows, there was a lovely little surprise in the barn - a cute black with a white face bull calf!  We've been waiting for this mama to have hers for a few days now, and last night was the time.  He definitely came late last night because when I found him this morning he was totally licked and dried off.  Mama and baby are doing well, though we will have to sort them out of the herd and put them in the calving barn with the other 13 sets in the next day or so.  I also noticed a red cow in the beginning phases of birth, so checked on her again right before dinner.  She hadn't progressed any further when I checked, but dad told me that between noon and 3 p.m. she had her bull calf.  I haven't seen him yet, but he is red with a white face (i.e. he looks like a Hereford).  We are now up to 15 cows and calves.  Almost halfway done with calving for 2012!

This morning was the day the guys from the elevator came with the nurse trucks full of liquid fertilizer.  Dad did the spraying with our sprayer all morning, except for one spot on our larger hills.  In those places, dad rides along in a heavy-duty sprayer that the elevator drives out (with an experienced driver, "no rookies for this terrain").  Because that is obviously a one-person job, I spent the morning picking up burnables around the barnyard and weeding around my yard.  After dinner, I came back and mowed my yard since dad still wasn't quite done spraying yet.

For the rest of the afternoon, dad assigned me a few patches to harrow with the same harrow and tractor I used yesterday.  This time, however, I wore ear protection since this tractor really growls (especially on the hills I was working on today).  It's pretty easy work and I could follow my paths better today than yesterday, but since I'm still not totally comfortable with machine or terrain, I drive in a low gear.  Thus, I didn't accomplish my task in four hours.  Dad came to relieve me at 6:45 and it only took him half an hour to finish what would have probably taken me an hour to get done.  I know he has forty years practice on me, and putting the tractor in high gear would help speed things up, but I was a little bummed that I didn't manage to finish my task.  I'm sure I'll have amply opportunity to practice and get a little faster, though.

It was a beautiful day even though the wind was around 25 mph.  However, all this yard work and sunshine equals more sunburn.  Yep, it is the season.

Fixing "Old Faithful"

My parents came out to quite a surprise this morning when they went out to put the sheep in their pasture - one of our water hydrants rusted out and broke causing a geyser.  Instead of a day filled with field work as planned, dad spent much of the day dealing with that problem.  We did get the south yard fed before heading over to deal with the hydrant, but the rest of the morning was spent getting the backhoe hooked up to the tractor and finding the waterline.  While dad went to town to buy the needed supplies to fix the problem, I watered all the cattle and sheep.  After dinner, I helped mom rotor-till the potato patch and put up the electric webbing to fence off a pasture for the sheep while dad had to go to a different store to find the appropriately sized piece of tubing.  After he got everything back together and we filled in the hole, we came back to feed the west yard, the stock cows, and replacement heifers.  While dad feed the cattle, he let me loose with the harrow, so I can start getting a feel for fieldwork.  I used a sharp-tooth harrow today.  So, harrowing is typically the last step in field cultivation.  There are several types of harrows but they all break up the soil into much finer pieces than discing.  The sharp-tooth harrow looks as it sounds, rows of straight, sharp teeth with very little flexibility.  I did three rounds around the field to get a feel for it.  It is certainly easier than harrowing beside a team of oxen!  Otherwise, things went pretty smoothly today considering the change in plans.  I did manage to get a sunburn on my face, which will be an endless struggle for the rest of the season.  I wear hats of varying brim sizes, but sunburns are inevitable for the fair complected.  Yay.

Windy, windy, windy!

As I look out the window now at 8 o'clock in the evening, this is the first time today there is little to no wind. This morning, though a reasonable temperature in the mid-fifties, felt wickedly cool due to the overcast skies and 40-45 mph winds.  It was not pleasant to load the feed wagon with chopped, dry hay or gluten, though it did give me practice parking the tractor and wagon in a more ideal location.  This morning I did get to feed the west yard (which is becoming my task daily since those bunks are great practice ones), but I also got to load the wagon with the feed for the stock cows.  As I said, it wasn't pleasant with the hay blowing into my eyes, but I have worked with the Case skidloader before and am quite comfortable with it.  It was exciting to take the next step in involvement with the feeding process.  We also replaced two broken boards on one of the bunks at the stock cow barn, so now they will have access to all of their feed rather than have most of it spill out one of their bunks.  In order to accomplish the other necessary task for the day, dad and I had to go to Farm and Fleet and purchase flags.  We picked up a few more supplies while we were there.  On our way home for dinner, we stopped to give a map and delivery instructions to the man who will haul our load of gluten from point A to point B.

After dinner, dad worked on fixing our family's lawn mower (I was absolutely useless during that entire process), and finally managed to get it working again.  From there we took the flags and marked off the dividing line between our bean ground and corn ground so the nurse truck driver (the nurse truck being the vehicle hauling huge tanks that carry our liquid fertilizer) would know where and where not to spray.  We did this both at the home place and at Bradford.  We ended the day by moving machinery from the field to the yard so that we can actually start planting within the next week or so.  I'm pretty excited about that process.  I'm not fluent on most of our machinery, though I am familiar with it, but I've never planted or harvested before.  Yet that is the big stuff!  It'll be great to learn!

Sunday Reflections

Because Sunday is my default day-off, rather than write about if I slept-in or read a book or visited with my grandparents or baked some bread (all of which I did today), I think it is more appropriate to take this opportunity to reflect on the events of the week; consider what I learned, conversations I've had, thoughts I've been pondering.

This week brought with it my actually leaving my first-ever full time job, the decision to shift my view of the farm as a business rather than just my home, and several conversations with friends about these new happenings.  In one of these conversations, a friend posed the question of whether or not a person can truly change and grow in the context of their comfort zone.  Am I in an actual environment conducive to evaluating what I want from life because of the set structure this particular environment is defined by?  My immediate reaction to this question (and the one I used to conduct the remainder of this conversation) was to prickle and become incessantly defensive.  Yet I cannot deny the validity of the question.  On the very basic level, I would have to agree with my friend's doubts.  After all, the "comfort zone" is called such for a reason.  It is an environment in which we feel secure because we understand the boundaries and what the expectations within those boundaries are.  I would say that if a person never left their comfort zone, then, no, they would not be able to truly change and grow within it.  This, however, does not apply to my own life.  For one thing, the very fact I went to college ensured that I left my very comfortable rural existence.  My selection of Knox made that reality all the clearer.  Despite it being only forty miles from home, Knox may as well have been 4,000 miles considering the experiences I had, the people I met, and the perspectives I encountered there.  I found myself in a new political climate, an academic setting in which the majority of students WANTED to be there and to excel, living with people of differing racial, cultural, religious, and social backgrounds, and experienced the first real challenge to my identity.  I found myself questioning who I was, where I had been, where I wanted to go.  Ambitions that had never crossed my mind came to full fruition while taking the history classes and finding a supportive and encouraging mentor.

Knox gave me an opportunity to study off-campus in Chicago at the Newberry Library.  My desire to study in that program brought challenges to overcome.  For the first time in my life, I had to convince my parents I was capable of doing something.  For the first time in my life, I had to reassure my parents.  Their fear of letting go and their feeling of helplessness of my going into a situation that they couldn't advise me on stirred in me a compassion yet determination to seize this opportunity and prove to everyone that I could survive in a city.  No one needed more convincing of that fact than me.  As a junior with very little research and writing experience, I found myself in a vigorous program that left me feeling lost and uncertain about all of my abilities.  Yet because of my pride, stubbornness, and fear, I rarely expressed those concerns to parents for fear that they would want me to come home.  I found myself depending on my friend group too much to just survive the program.  But I did.  I came back to finish the year at Knox with a whole new prospective on academics.  Nothing junior year was as academically difficult as my semester at the Newberry.  Other challenges presented themselves in my daily life that forced me to undertake new methods of dealing with emotional and social situations.  Suddenly, my maternal and compassionate caring for my friends became too much to handle and I became emotionally numb.  I began to put myself and my needs before those of others.  This led me to apply for the Historic Deerfield Summer Fellowship Program in Deerfield, MA.

My summer at Historic Deerfield was one of many firsts.  It was the first time I had left the Midwest, the first time I had taken an airplane, first time I ever swam in a river, the first time I saw and touched the ocean, the first time I had ever eaten Greek, Thai, Ethopian, or Middle Eastern food, and the first time I had ever met people with the same ambitions in public history as me.  It was also the first time I had actually felt like a college student.  Here, in this place thousands of miles from home with people I had just met, I felt more secure and supported to act like a twenty-year-old than I ever had at Knox.  No one expected me to act like a mother, no one judged me for never experiencing half the things I hadn't and everyone of them encouraged me in these new experiences.  If any of the other five fellows found out I hadn't done this or that, they found a way to make it happen.  And though every one of them knew I was a farm kid, they saw me first as a fellow history nerd who aspired to be a museum professional.  In fact, while hosting a speaker for an annual lecture series held at Deerfield, the gentleman (who also happened to be from the Midwest) and I were casually talking of my rural roots and he told me how I was quite worldly.  He might never have guessed I was from rural Illinois had I not told him so.  That was probably one of the biggest shocks of my life.  It had always seemed to me that because my rural background had always set me apart it must have been written on my face, in my voice, in my mannerisms.  (This separation was present even in my rural public school because so few kids were actually "farm kids." After all, here are kids who live on farms and there are "farm kids;" I am certainly one of the latter.)  My two months at Deerfield left me with a new-found confidence in life.  After all, I had survived, thrived in fact, during this summer of firsts.  I experienced a whole new part of the country with an entirely different cultural identity and met peers with whom I could act my age easily and comfortably.  This was also the first time I had ever been away from home during hay-making, a task that was as part of my summer routines since I was old enough to push a bale off the back of the hay rack.  It was one of those activities that the entire family participated in.  It built up a strength and a pride - strength of our family ties and pride in our entire family's role in keeping the farm prosperous.  Yet despite my distance from this activity, I was happy, healthy, and at peace.

A peace that the strains of senior years abruptly brought to an end.  Between my honors project and the stress of everyday college existence, I once again found myself floundering to survive.  Because my experiences in Chicago and Deerfield had brought enough diverse perspectives to my consciousness and built up enough confidence to assert myself and my own needs, I felt challenges I had never suspected I would encounter.  The result was emotional turmoil and academic self-doubt.  How I managed to actually receive honors and a Bachelor of Arts from such a prestigious institution as Knox still sometimes amazes me.  Yet, I managed both while gaining many painful, yet necessary experiences for my personal growth.  I met people who changed my life forever.  Some are still active participants in my life while others are not.  While still others have become active participants without my ever expecting them to.

The months after graduation found me working in temporary positions around campus, offering me the opportunity to learn a different side of Knox and making new friends on a professional level.  It found me applying for an internship with Tillers International, an internship I had spent months trying to talk myself out of applying for.  Yet, I did.  And I got it.  Those ten months at Tillers shifted my consciousness again, but this time in a much more intense way.  While there is no denying that the perspectives I encountered at Knox were intense, most of them dealt with professional and political aspirations and viewpoints.  It was unavoidable to discuss my rural roots and how those roots defined who I was, but no one really questioned the type of rural roots.  To most people at Knox, agriculture wasn't really a concern.  Most didn't think of it at all.  Period.  Yet at Tillers, I met a segment of people who lived agriculture, yet a wholly different kind than I was familiar with.  I met people from cities who came to Tillers because they wanted to start their own farms.  People who wanted to grow their own food in a sustainable way.  People who openly and adamantly opposed conventional farming methods.  People who forced me to defend why my family farmed the way they did.  My naturally high defenses bristled to an unknown level.  With each attack on the large, corporate, conventional farms (who I agree often have terrible practices), I felt that attack on my family because we farmed with enough similar methods that people passed judgment.  Many of these people did not see farming as a business; they envisioned bucolic homesteads on which they would grow enough food for themselves or a CSA to provide for their neighbors or a market garden for the local farmer's market.  Most never considered making their entire living by farming.  And most didn't have a clue of the work farming truly involved.  I met a woman who became a wonderful friend, yet forced me to reevaluate everything I had ever known to be certain in my life for ethical reasons.  What made the experience most difficult was her nurturing compassion for me; she asked those hard questions because she cared, not because she was judging.  And yet, I had never felt more judged in my life.  Even now, I am still considering the questions she asked, the lifestyle changes she thought I should consider, my views on what farming ought to be.  I went away from that experience once again feeling uncertain on who I was, who I ought to be, and what I wanted.

Thus brings me to my present.  Here I am, back on my family's farm.  A place of comfort.  A place that has always given me peace.  A place where I know what is expected of me.  A place that has defined me.  A place that cultivated the work ethic that I have used in every aspect of my life thus far.  And yet, over the last five years I have been exposed to a plethora of new ideas, made the acquaintance of a wide-range of people, shifted my political, social, cultural, religious, and philosophical perspective, and had my identity challenged again and again.  With each challenge I evaluate who I think I am , who I think I want to become, and struggle to find ways to succeed in those goals while remaining a genuine person.  I still struggle with the idea of self-worth yet can have such empowering experiences that I had no doubts in my abilities and what I mean to the world around me.  There is one thing that I know for certain, I am here.  I may not understand the reason, I may not know for how long, but it seems to me that I should strive to be a positive presence in the lives of those around me.  If I can manage to be a ray of sunshine, albeit a small one, in the lives of others, then everything will fall into place in its own time.

So, to answer my friend's question:  can a person truly grow and mature in their comfort zone?  When that someone brings new ideas into that zone and is willing to give those ideas freedom in order to test the existing boundaries, then, yes, they absolutely can.

Shuttle Service

There isn't much to report today.  The morning was dismal and did not help keep my exhaustion at bay, but today's tasks were far from strenuous.  Dad and I went up Bradford (our Stark County farm) to bring our corn planter home.  One of our waterways also needs partially reseeded, so we first set markers indicating to the men who will be applying our fertilizer where to stop spraying.  Dad drove the tractor that hauled the corn planter home while I followed behind with the truck.  It's always a good idea for a truck to follow when someone is hauling equipment to forewarn the public of the slow-moving vehicle.  The hazard lights works on the tractor, but the truck is the first line of warning.  After we got back, we fed the west and south yard.  I once again fed the feeders in the west yard.  This time, I only really missed one of the bunks and that was because I was too close to the building, so the feed was piling up against the bunk lids and slipping over.  I managed to correct myself and I even backed up the wagon to fill a few bunks again.  I confirmed the number of head and weights with dad.  The south yard has 78 feeders ranging between 700 and 900 pounds. The west yard has about 60 feeders between 550 and 800 pounds.  There are roughly 30 bred cows left to calve, with 5 first-time heifers at the home place, and 11 replacement heifers.  I had the rest of the afternoon off, so I caught up on a few projects in my house.  We are waiting for the rain to come.  There was a dust-settler this morning, but it has now cleared up nicely.  While it is currently quite beautiful outside, we could use a few inches to improve ground moisture.  We'll see what happens.

The First Three Days

If you all will permit me another long post, I will catch everyone up on the goings-on over the last three days. In case you are new to reading a Margaret Spiegel blog, I will warn you from the very beginning, my posts tend to reach astronomical length about the very basic activities of my day.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Day 1:
Wednesday was an absolutely gorgeous day.  There was a slight chill in the air, but there was lots of sunshine and a light breeze.  Because we are livestock producers, the obvious day-to-day activities include chores.  The morning was spent grinding and mixing feed for the cattle.  We have five different lots of cattle.  Three of these lots are on the farm's hub (where my house is and where all of our grain storage is).  The south yard has, oh, 50-80 head (I will have to ask about the current capacity) of 700-800 pound feeder heifers and steers.  The west yard has probably 20-30 head of 400-500 pound feeders, mostly consisting of Holstein steers.  In a smaller pen immediately north of the south yard, there are about 10 replacement heifers for our breeding herd.  The breeding herd is on another building site about 1/2 mile up the road from my house.  We probably have another 30 left to calve.  Thirteen have already had their calves and are separated from the herd.  There are also cattle at the home place (where my parents live along the highway).  This lot has the first-time bred heifers, so they are close at hand in case dad needs to assist with a birth.  Obviously we need to feed all of these animals on a daily or bi-daily basis (bi-daily based on how much you feed per feeding).  Our feed consists of a particular ratio of corn silage, ground corn, haylage (a.k.a. chopped dry hay), gluten, protein supplement, minerals, and baking soda.  There are slight variations depending on which pen we are feeding, but that's to be expected considering the size of the animals vary.

My task Wednesday morning was to grind several loads of shell corn and unload it into the loft of the feed house.  To many, this many seem like a labor-intensive task.  However, I will remind everyone that we live in a world of machinery and as a conventional farm, we use it!  No mortal and pestle for me!  When I say I had to grind the corn, what I mean is I was responsible for supervising the machines and operating them in the correct sequence to get the task accomplished.  Let me trace the path of the corn in this process.  The shell corn (whole corn kernels removed from the cob) is stored in a silo.  There is an opening at the bottom of the silo with a temporary door rigged up so the flow of the grain is easy to control.  Directly below this door is an old plastic water tank that has been modified to have an auger in it.  The auger takes the corn from this water tank to the grinder/mixer, a machine with drum-grinders controlled by the tractors power take-off (PTO) shaft.  There is an extension that takes the corn up another auger into the grinder itself.  The auger from the silo drops the corn into this extension.  Once the corn travels up the auger in the extension, it is in the grinder and, naturally, getting ground.  The grinder/mixer can hold about 5,000 pounds in a full load.  My task was to engage the grinder, turn the PTO of the tractor on and give it enough power to run the grinder (about 3,500 RPM), engage the auger in the grinder's extension, plug in the auger leading from the silo, and keeping the corn flowing out of the silo.  If any problems occur, I am there to unplug whichever part of the sequence.  There were no problems.  I sometimes had to unplug the silo auger to let the extension auger keep up with the load, but things went smoothly.

After I filled the grinder/mixer, I unloaded it.  After disengaging the grinding component, I engaged a different auger coming from the grinder/mixer that dumped the ground corn into an old oil barrel.  In that old barrel was another auger (powered by the PTO of a different tractor) that dumped the feed into the loft of the feed house.  I put four loads of ground corn into the feed house and filled the grinder a fifth time to unload directly into the feed wagon dad was using.  I ground 10 ton of corn!  Isn't it amazing to think of how much weight it takes to feed animals?  Of course, the 8 ton in the feed house loft will last a little while, since we only put ground corn in the feed mixture of four pens and it is 40 shovel-fulls per load.  Still, though, it won't last nearly as long as you think it will.

Because the weather was glorious, and because it nearly to be completed, dad spent the afternoon tilling our property in Stark County.  You see, our farm is called Scattered Acres because we have property in two counties, Stark and Henry.  This name was coined by my grandmother, and though we don't officially do business as Scattered Acres, the family understands it as our name.  While he was gone, I filled four skidloader buckets full of oats and dumped them into the large tub in the feed house.  I also worked on the never-ending "farm beautification project" (a.k.a picking up junk) in an area between our corn crib and the west yard.  The great thing about farm beautification, it's so satisfying to make an area look nice and get paid the scrap-metal price at the junkyard.  It's a win-win.  I then began the normal routine of walking up the cow herd, walking through the herd to keep for calves, water the cow/calf pairs, and the two sheep that reside on that building site (our ram and one cull ewe who lost her lamb).  Overall, it was a pretty light workday, and it was wonderful to be outside and start learning the routine.

Day 2:
Thursday morning promised another beautiful day, though slightly cooler than Wednesday had been.  After walking up and filling the water tank, dad and I began mixing feed for the west yard.  The corn silage is stored in the silo next to the silo with the whole shell corn.  Dad operates that silo, though I'm sure I'll learn it soon (or I'll ask to).  We also have an area in the feed house that stores the protein supplement.  This supplement does contain hormones that promote healthy digestion, but dad explained how we do not feed the full amount.  Especially after my experience at Tillers, I have heard the concerns people have about hormones in their meat.  I understand those arguments and don't disagree with them.  However, I want to reassure everyone that while my family does use growth hormones, because we do want our cattle to gain weight for the market, we do NOT pump them full of hormones.  We probably use less than half of the "recommended" amount of those hormones (recommended from the industry standards).  Dad uses enough to gain digestive efficiency, but that's it.  He said that one year he feed closer to that recommended amount and was not at all pleased with the results.  Growth hormones are testosterone, and increasing those hormone levels led the heifers (and steers, but heifers to a greater extent) to riding each other and become more aggressive.  My dad is a cattleman.  He knows what qualities he is looking for in an animal and one thing he always looks for in a pleasant disposition.  Sure, we get the occasional spooky cow, but the majority of our animals are calm and friendly.  There is the natural flight-zone around humans, but we can typically walk among our cows without fear.  Feeding more of that hormone changed the equation, and dad doesn't care to repeat that feeding pattern.  Dad also shoveled out the 40 scoops of ground corn, then we went to the other side of the farm to put the gluten and haylage in the feed wagon.  Our feed wagon had two augers in the bottom that mixes the feed components together.  Those augers are powered by the tractor PTO.  After the feed was mixed, dad let me drive the wagon to feed the west yard.  Considering I really haven't been on a tractor in six months, I did pretty well.  I only missed two bunks (because I drove the wagon away from the bunk, not because I hit anything).  I shoveled what I missed into the bunks by hand, so the cattle still got their appropriate amount of feed.  Also, correcting mistakes by physical labor will probably encourage me to ensure I not make that same mistake again. :)  Then we mixed a load of feed for the cow herd.  Unlike the younger animals in the feed lots, we don't feed corn silage or ground corn to the mature cows.  Dad explained how the mature cows don't need the extra energy those corn products provide for the younger animals.  Dad fed those cows because the mixture was a different consistency, which changes how the wagon expels it.  I need to be more familiar with the wagon before I understand the nuances changing the mixture causes.

After we got everyone fed, we castrated and docked the lambs' tails.  The second group of lambs had 21 lambs, most of which were bucks.  We use the rubber band method of castration for our lambs and calves.  Because we process them when they are young, there isn't much of a need to cut.  This is just the way we have always done it, and it seems to work well.  I'll not arguefor which method is better necessarily; each suits a purpose, but I prefer the banding method.  We also gave all the lambs a tetanus shot because we docked their tails.  Docking sheep tails are for health reasons.  In wool breeds of sheep, fecal matter can build up on a longer tail and can cause very serious health issues.  Docking the tail prevents these complications.  It is essential to give a tetanus shot when doing this, though.  We also moved two pairs of cow/calves to the other group, castrated the one bull, ear-tagged three calves, and moved the cow/calf pairs to pasture.  Dad and I also sowed oat and grass seed over the area I had cleared all the junk from on Wednesday.  My day on the farm ended at 3 p.m. (except for the usual chores of walking to and checking the cows, watering the cow/calves, and feeding the replacement heifers [3 buckets of oats in the morning and 2 buckets of shell corn in the evening]) because I had some errands in town.

Day 3:
It was a very windy and overcast day today.  And quite cool.  There promises to be rain, which we desperately need, so hopefully we get some tonight and tomorrow.  Dad is hoping for two inches of gently falling rain.  We'll see.  After feeding the south yard and cow herd, dad and I ran errands the rest of the day.  This morning, we went to Menard's and picked up 20 sheets of CDX plywood that we will use to rebuild the A-buildings for our annual batch of Holstein bucket calves.  The timing worked out perfectly; we returned home and unloaded them in the lean-to just in time for dinner.  This afternoon, we went and had our truck inspected to get certification to haul a livestock trailer, picked up supplies at Farm and Fleet, and dropped off a map of our Stark County farm to the guys at the elevator so they can spray fertilizer on our corn ground next week.  Dad also wanted me to meet the guys in case he sent me to the elevator at any point to pick up spray, fertilizer, seed, or anything else.  It was pretty amusing because the guys (whom I have heard...interesting stories about) were "respectfully subdued" in the presence of a girl.  I say "girl" rather than "young woman" because I suspect these middle-aged and older men see me as a girl.  And some were probably surprised when my dad said I was his helper for the summer.  I had been to the facilities before, but it has been a few years, so it was useful to go on this trip.  I am pretty tired today, so I wish I could have been more attentive, but between staying up later than I should and the dreary weather, I shouldn't be surprised (or complain) that I'm tired.  I also succeeded in hurting my shoulder today while I fed the replacement heifers, but I'm hoping that it sorts itself out quickly.  I did have to take ibuprofen right after I did it because it smarted, but that's what you get for lifting a full 5-gallon bucket from thigh-height to about head-height with one arm that may not actually have the strength to do that yet.  I was stupid and I'm suffering the consequences.  At least I am young, my body ought to heal quickly, right?

An Explanation

Well, here I am again, back to the blogosphere to share my experiences and reflections of my latest adventure.  I will be spending the next ten to twelve months working alongside my dad and learning the management of our family’s farm.  The decision to make this commitment has been a long-time coming and one I have desperately needed to decide on.  The question of whether or not I want to farm for the rest of my life has been present in my mind since high school.  It is understood that my sister and I will equally inherit my father’s portion of the farm and will be equally responsible for the management of that portion.  There is also an understanding between my sister and I that we will do whatever it takes to ensure our family’s farm STAYS in our family.  We both share that conviction and feel that connection with our land.  Yet it is fascinating to me to reflect on how I have reached this point in my life – the point in which I am determined to learn the management and live the life my father does for an entire year with such conviction for the future of agriculture. 

Most people who know anything about me know that I am a farm girl.  I embrace that as an essential and significant part of my identity.  But it may surprise many that this was not always the case.  There was never any question that I was involved in our farm from the time I was old enough to push a square bale off of the hayrack.  When I could pull a weed from the garden.  When I could hold a lamb still on my lap.  When I knew my numbers well enough to put check duplicates in numerical order.  I can’t even tell you when I became aware of the expectation to pitch in; when I became aware that in order for our FAMILY to survive, everyone had to work for the betterment of the farm.  It was an early realization, though.  I still distinctly remember thinking “At least I know what work is” when hearing complaints about household chores from my classmates in first or second grade.  To be sure, this and the idea of “working hard for a living” were phrases I had heard my parents say at various times of my childhood, thereby they entered into my own vocabulary, but I never realized then how profoundly those ideas would follow me in life.  Despite my continual participation in various farming tasks growing up, I never felt the same kind of joy or interest in farming as my sister did.  She was more active in   4-H and FFA than I ever was or ever had any inclination to be.  There was always a sense of OBLIGATION rather than MOTIVATION when I did these tasks.  I certainly became aware of the fact that if I didn’t pull my full weight someone else (either one of my parents) would pick up the slack because the task needed to be done and done accurately the first time.  In all honesty, there were times I resented the farm and how demanding it was.  And, while I was in my adolescence with a growing friend group, how limiting it was.  And yet, it was in high school, when I worked the farm during the summers just as every other summer before, when I began to appreciate and enjoy it.  During the tumultuous years of adolescence when you realize that you have no idea who you are or who you want to become, I found relief from the stress of peer pressure, the doubt of self-criticism, and the angst that always accompanies that phase of life, in the manual labor of haymaking.  I found peace in the solitude the farm provided.  I was ten miles from my closest friend and had the ability to become a social hermit during the summers.  I was able to build up enough peace and release enough tension that I could survive one more school year in a small public school system that I despised, with a friend group I began to realize I didn’t actually fit into.  I began to acknowledge a feeling that I undoubtedly had from a young age.  A feeling of connectedness with my family and my family’s heritage and its physical presence in our farmland.  It brought with it an appreciation and respect for all the generations of Spiegels who had put their blood, sweat, and tears into cultivating this land into a productive means to earn a living.  I realized that despite my school being in a rural area, my classmates had no comprehension of their family’s heritage.  They had no appreciation for the work their parents did to build a better life for them.  They had no idea how to dedicate themselves to an enterprise as demanding yet rewarding as agriculture.  They had no motivation to try such an enterprise.  And I had no desire to be among people who were so oblivious to how fortunate they were, who could scarcely show their parents respect let alone respect generations of their family they had never met. 

This feeling of connectedness flourished in college.  In my study of history, I learned to critically analyze the past and really question what “heritage” meant.  I met people who were willing to explore this idea, among others.  These same individuals asked about my personal experiences, thereby creating the need for me to articulate myself.  I suddenly had command of a vocabulary that enabled me to articulate my experiences.  And I had gained the analytical skills to find a deeper meaning in these experiences.  Undoubtedly, the insights I discovered led me to pursue my internship with Tillers International from April - November 2011.  It was a place where I saw my academic interest in history (public history, specifically) intersect with my fundamental connection with heritage via agriculture.  In many ways, this was true.  My experiences in Michigan taught me many things, some positive, some not, but my dedication to and awareness of the importance of agriculture never wavered.  If anything, that experience paved the path I have now decided to take.

This brings us to the present.  I hope to achieve many things over the next ten to twelve months and will hopefully utilize this blog to accomplish a few of them.  I, of course, want to learn to manage the farm – learn the system my dad had in place, everything from the infrastructure, business practices, animal husbandry, mechanical knowledge, the day-to-day activities.  In this, I want to become more than competent.  I want to educate myself and my friends (or whoever will listen) on these practices and on agriculture in general.  But most importantly, I want to be honest with myself.  I plan to use much this time to reflect on what I want from life.  Is this deep-rooted connection to my family’s land something that courses through my veins powerful enough to keep me on the farm?  To take over the operation permanently?  Am I enraptured by an idea of farming I have created for myself without truly understanding reality?  Is this the reality I want to stay in?  Will this reality provide me with everything I do know I want from life?  I understand that it is entirely possible for me to discover that I may actually not want to farm.  I may discover I want to pursue intellectual and professional ambitions in the realm of public history.  Or I might not.  Either way, I am giving myself the time for this introspection while I am in a phase of my life conducive for it.  I am unattached, young and healthy enough for the physical demands of farming, and will still have plenty of time to pursue other ambitions if that is indeed the outcome. 

I invite you to join me on this path of self-discovery…if you dare.