September 1, 2011: Give A Man a Combine and He Can Feed The World

The first day of September did not usher in the feeling of new beginnings or the closing of the summer season. It promised to be boiling hot, I had just come off of a visit to Spokane, and my dear farmer husband was in a mood to say the least. After all, harvest is supposed to be all but over by September, and the upcoming holiday week-end usually meant a trip to the coast for seafood. That would not be the case for this family this year.

            As most farm families know, harvest is the most stressful time on a farm. The farmers, and the help, are not only putting in 16+ hour days, but it’s hot, dirty, completely unpredictable, and your whole livelihood for yourself, your family, and your future in this business is on the line. Therefore, as most farm wives know, the best time to take a vacation from the farm is of course during harvest. When I initially took on this job as farm wife – or the farm rib, referring tongue in cheek of course to Adam’s rib – I could have never imagined wanting to be away at this most important time of year for our family and business. I loved watching the excitement in my husband’s eyes the first day he cut wheat, I like making lunches, and huge harvest dinners. I like taking my kids out to ride with their dad and taking pictures of them growing and changing every year with the same golden fields as their backdrop. However, after nine years, I’m starting to understand why some farm wives take residence anywhere else but on their farm in August.

            It all started out with losing a truck driver. Not that he got fired, or quit unexpectedly, or ran off with the circus like farm wives dream of. No, we lost him simply because he had to go back to his real job, in real life, in real time. We knew this was coming. Heck, I knew it was coming last December when he agreed to take his vacation during harvest so that he could play farmer for two weeks. Between you and me, I told Wave that in our Spring Work meeting. Plan for him to be leaving, I said. We will need someone to take his place. Maybe even teach me to drive truck.

            But the response I got was that it would be fine and that he was not ready to teach me to drive because I had too many responsibilities here at home with the kids and running for parts. True, but…what about when Chad goes back to work? I learned to stop asking. My farmer had it under control because this is not an uncommon occurrence for brothers, or friends, or even acquaintances of farmers.  After all, give a man a lawn mower and he can happily mow an acre, give a man a combine, on the other hand, and he can joyously feed the world.

            Now, really? I don’t understand the male’s cult obsession with oversized Tonka toys, but who am I to judge, right? I still like to use my kitchen as if it’s an oversized Easybake Oven.

            Anyway, I digress, like usual. The truck driver went back to work, and my husband went into his harvest mood. Now, backing up, I had planned for this, just as I had planned for Chad leaving. Every year something harvest-stopping happens in August, and every year that causes the farmer to be “in his mood.” And I only say that because it’s not like he yells, or screams, or takes it out on my in the normal sense, it’s more like he just simply ignores me, ignores the kids, fails to say thank you, how are you, or anything else, fails to kiss, hug, smile.  These are the things about these long work seasons that keep me going.

            Instead, we go dive head long into a different pattern. I try sickeningly harder than usual to be chipper. I ask more questions, try to encourage conversation, and taking his thoughts away from anything that has to do with the fact that we now have a combine in the field full of wheat and no truck to haul it. I kiss him more, a pat his back, I’m turn into a mom trying to console a sulking child. Yuck! I can’t even stand me! So, with every rejection of my over-zealous self-sickening actions, I get more stressed out and he gets more isolated. In the end, I usually end up yelling at him to SAY THANK YOU JUST ONCE YOU UNGRATEFUL JERK!!!! And that’s the PG version! And he yells back that HE DOESN”T HAVE TIME FOR THIS CRAP!

            BUT, this year, no matter what I promised myself I was not going to fight. I even had a pre-harvest meeting with myself, alone, working out the ways that I was going to breathe, smile, walk away, throw a pie at the wall after he left, curse him and bless him at the same time. I would do just about anything rather than react.

            So, my DH, as I have seen Them referred to in other blogs, gets up this morning, walks to his chair, takes his coffee that I offered, of course minus the thank you, and without even saying good morning, he says, “So when you gonna have that bus ready to I can drive it to the fair for you?”

            I smile and take a breath so deep I’m pretty sure I popped a lung.

            “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” I say. “I can do it.”

            “No you can’t,” he sneers.

            “Why not?”

            I’m not exactly under the mistaken impression that we are not having a friendly conversation, I’m just trying to live the illusion in hopes that by doing so we can look back on it as one. Yeah right.

            “You can’t drive the bus,” he said flatly.

            “Sure, I can,” I smile. “You, yourself said it’s no different than the van.”

            “Look,” he says, standing up. “I don’t have time for this. Just tell me when the damn thing is ready.”

            “Well, probably tomorrow,” I say, standing as well.

            “Fine! I’ll take it there.”

            And this is where I made my colossal mistake. Take it there? Take IT THERE? As if taking this monstrosity of a bus 30 minutes away to the same damn town that I had driven to once, sometimes twice a day, for parts during harvest was too much to ask. And, not that I even asked for him to do it! No one ever asked him to help. 

            I tried to take a deep breath, but it wouldn’t go further than the first quadrant in my lung. Had I kept my mouth shut, the next two weeks might have been easier, but as you can all tell, I DON’T keep my mouth shut.

            “Look,” I say, setting my coffee cup down. “You’re busy. There is no reason I can’t do it on my own.”

            And then I added, just for old times sake, I guess: “You-Don’t-Have-To-Get-So-Mad.”

            As Kenny Roger’s said, You could have heard a pin drop, as my DH turned and looked at me for the first time in days.

            I would have apologized, truly I would have, if nothing more than to keep my promise to myself not to fight with my stressed out husband this harvest. After all, we were supposed to be in this thing together. However, his response. His five-word response was enough to set off opposing steam-rollers of silent treatments for the next two weeks and before he even opened his mouth I could see it coming.

            “Well, here YOU go again!” he said.

            And then he promptly turned around and slammed the door.

            Now, not to get into the nitty gritty of our little harvest spat, simply because you would stop reading here and now, let me just tell you that against my better judgment I did not let that door stay closed like I should have. There wasn’t a bug between here and Wave’s shop that wasn’t praying for fingers to stuff in its ears and the only thing I was thinking was, “Wow, the thought of a nice rental house in North Shore is starting to sound pretty darn good right about now!”

            

August 31. 2011: Why Do They Still Pave Paradise To Put Up A Parking Lot?

  

            The last day of August was fairly nice. It was a hot, sunny day, and I got to spend it in Spokane. Yep, Spokane. On the blacktop, in the heat, around people who buzz around like bees looking for a good deal, a quick bite, some kind of material reward to give themselves a break from their reality television, lack of nature or nurture, self-absorbed selves.

            Of course, I am being cynical here, but the truth is that spending a day surrounding by people who seem to never look up, never see the clouds, never stop to smell the warm summertime air (not that I do either in Spokane), and are only focused on what they can get quickly and for a really good price is very disheartening to me and I believe unhealthy for my soul. I loathe shopping. The thought of going to meet my “girlfriends” in town in order to pal around in overly air-conditioned stores surrounded by people who are completely unhappy and attempting to fill that void in their life by purchasing those $60 shoes that they must have and can’t afford is just about the worst thing I can ever imagine doing in my life. The second is talking about the new seasons of reality shows that are about to start. I don’t have television (aside from movies) and the thought of watching someone else live their life instead of living my own makes me want to vomit on the sidewalk in front of everyone. Now, that is reality! Frankly, I prefer old ratty flip flops, green grass under my feet, a fold up lawn chair under my bum, and watching my son play like Christopher Robin in his tree house.

            However, the boys start school in six days and they have been bugging me about needing clothes and pencils. I want to spout the old adage, “You’ll learn more with me than you even will in that school!” But this day and age I know that that is not true, so off we drive, away from our farm, away from harvest, away from green grass and good smelling air.

            What I hate most about going to Spokane, especially in harvest, is the fact that my grandfather, the one who has cancer, used to farm most of the land that now supports churches, sub-division housing and shopping malls. As we drive to the store, I cannot help but see an overlapping image, much like a Charles Peterson painting, of my sixteen-year-old sister hauling irrigation pipe around the grass, her arms strong, and her legs wet from the morning dew on the grass. Now all that is there is a peach mortar church with entrapped playground equipment for the poor souls who must attend daycare there. Those children, and those church goers will never see the image of my sister, only me, and frankly, I’d like to always see it that way.

            On the way in my son is blaring rap music.  I point out the old field again, but they’ve heard it all before.

            “Yeah Mom, we know,” they say. “So where are we going to eat?”

            The predictable one in the back pipes up, “McDonalds?”

            “Yeah, right,” I snort. “Maybe we should have just scooped up some pig poop from the barn on the way out and wrapped it in cellophane. It’s probably got more nutrients than the food you want to buy, and it’s free.”

            “Mom,” Brett says. “Just stop. We’ll eat at a restaurant.”

            They are all silent the rest of the way in. Thank goodness for boys. We came, we saw, we shopped, we left! We even just grabbed some food at the deli and before I knew it, they had me back home. I believe that I made their blacktop experience the least pleasant possible; therefore, I think I am raising them well. 

August 30, 2011: The Plateau

            4:30 seems like hell this morning. That seems to be the only way to describe it. I don’t want to get up with Brett, but when I wander out to the kitchen I can see that he doesn’t want to get up either. He doesn’t even want coffee anymore, nor does he want his normal protein bar to start the day. His only request now is to let him sleep until 5:10 so that he can simply put on his cleats, grab his football bag, and roll out the door and into his coach’s car. I can understand that.

            Wave does not even get up with us this morning. What started out as a football season and harvest season filled with gumption and anticipation, has now hit what I like to call the plateau. Harvest is always on a bell curve in my mind. WE start quickly, usually without warning, and race up the hill to get grain in the bin, but as soon as we get enough wheat in to feel safe, things begin to plane out and thoughts other than just getting ‘er done begin to enter the farmer’s mind. Will all the fields be as good as this one? Will any be better? What am I going to do when this truck driver has to leave? What about when school starts and Amy is busy with the kids? I need to call the insurance adjuster? Is fall work going to be late? What is we don’t get rain and the fields are rock hard? Hell, I haven’t even started working on the tractor. There is no way it will be ready in time! The peas suck. I can see that just looking at them from the road. All of these thoughts which had been bottled up inside the mind of the farmer with his desire simply to cut some grain now have time to come out and torment him as he drives for sixteen hours a day inside the combine, and it is a recipe for stress and possible disaster!

            Without inquiring, which I dare not do, I am certain that we have hit the plateau, or the middle of harvest. It is the time when Wave gets quiet, I lose track of where I am at on my list, and the kids become completely chaotic.

            They can tell that school is about to start, the pool is about to close, and the fair, for which we all feel completely unprepared, is just around the corner. Today is Tuesday. School starts a week from today, and the fair starts on Wednesday night. We have not had time to shop for school clothes or show clothes and in this heat, which is topping out in the upper 90’s now, we have not had time nor energy to pack the bus for the fair.

            In spite of all of that, the crops are looking good. That is the only thing keeping tensions under control. Winter wheat yields, which average on a good year in the upper 80’s (bushels per acre) are in the 90’s and 100’s. That is something to be super excited about and also to hold our breath over. The yields need to hold strong throughout all of our fields, the prices need to hold, and the weather needs to remain warm. For us on the support end of harvest, laboring over tired hot animals, warm weather is hard to wish for.

            I did get to start a new book this morning. The Wednesday Letters. However, from the first page I can tell you straight out that this is no Water for Elephants, and like all readers it leaves me longing for the last book that I have yet to let go of. Oh well, there is no going back.

            For the rest of the day, we work the pigs. Brett is grouchy and tired and does not want to help, and though I cannot blame him after practicing in the heat, the hogs have to be worked. Dustin doesn’t want to help either. He simply wants to hang out in town with his friends. Jack and Maxx seem to be the only ones willing to go, but I make them all go anyway – including Summer. At least tonight we will all have showers at home and maybe I can even get the hot tub up and running again. Although the days are hot, the nights are starting to feel like fall.

            Tonight Wave is more quiet than ever and I feel like I am walking on egg shells as I make spaghetti and French bread. I leave him alone as he compiles the the weight slips on the bar. He does not even look up. Nor does he has how our day was. The kids retire to the living room for the night to watch a much needed movie and I don’t even reprimand them about showers.

            Working harvest is like building a house together. It is stressful, there is tension and it takes every ounce of everyone’s strength to get through it without ripping each other’s throats out. This year I am determined that we will not do that. I ask innocent questions about how things are going out there, but I can see straight away that he is in no mood to relive the day, so I simply let it go.  

August 29, 2011: The Mom Plum Lost it!

Prologue: I only use that because I like that word. It’s so formal, so professional. I just wanted to point out the obvious fact that I have not been adding in my diary for a while. That is because I was at the Palouse Empire Fair with the kids! Well, I’m back now, so on we go to Monday…

Last night it rained. Yes, rained! While my husband was busy musing over what possible time that they would be able to get into the field the next day, I was secretly smiling in the dark. I had not been able to water the lawn since the pump went out on the well, and what water I had given to my flowers had been limited at best. Scooping it out of the pond with the knowledge that I didn’t have hot water to wash my hands in afterward often caused me to put off that chore until it was almost too late. As for the garden, well, I had all but given up on that. The weeds flourished to be sure, but the plants were beginning to show signs of a stress that they might not recover from.

            I let Wave sleep in, and just before breakfast I opened all the windows wide in order to catch the last traces of green air, as I like to call air after it rains. There is something about it that just smells green.  I also cooked pancakes and eggs that morning as if I would have hot soapy water to wash the dishes in afterward.  For a while, with the pressure in the air released and the pressure of the need to water momentarily alleviated, there was laughter in the house once again.

            Our local grocery Mike called just after nine to say that the box of tomatoes that I ordered for the salsa I planned to can had come in. I will make lunches, walk the sheep with summer, and then go get the tomatoes before the water guy comes to fix the pump. I cannot wait for this, but I holding my breath. If it doesn’t work, we will learn that we have bigger problems and right now with the thought of having to wash pigs again tonight that is just not an option I am willing to explore.

            The sheep are unruly as usual and Summer will not be patient with them. She is worried, as am I, how they will act at the fair. They do not like their lead ropes and they end to jump and buck so hard when they are on them that we can barely lead them, let alone have Jack try to lead them for Daddy’s Little Sheppard. Finally, we simply put them back in their pens. They are hot, we are hot, and without water our patience is coming to an end. I walk over to the pigs and pet them on the snouts. I like them so much better then the sheep.

            I pick up the tomatoes in town and upon the return see that the pump guy has arrived. I hold my breath and wander about aimless even with my trusty list in sight. I can think of nothing else but water. I pull out the salsa recipe, but dare not start it knowing that if this doesn’t work, these tomatoes are destined for the freezer instead of the canner.

            Just after 1:00 Brett rushes out the door in a panic stating that he made a mistake. He flushed the toilet and there was actually water in it! I looked at the pump guy who was calmly screwing the face on a power box and said, “Well, that’s cuz’ I’m done!”

            Now you would think at this point I would be relieved and happy, but I guess there was something in the amount of tension that I had been holding inside that caused me to burst like a balloon. Suddenly, the list wasn’t enough to keep me in line, and I was immediately ordering everyone around like a drill sergeant. I quickly thanked the pump guy, barley pausing long enough to send out a thank-you to the universe for not letting this be a bigger problem that it already was. Then I started tossing out orders like baseballs. You do this! You go here! Pick this up! Put that down! Get in the car! Don’t forget your boots!

            By the time we got over to the pigs everyone in the car was tense and therefore so were the pigs, but I couldn’t stop myself. I pushed the kids through a round of “let this pig out, and put that pig in” so fast that everyone, including the swine went ape crazy!

            By the time that was over it was time for sheep practice at the 4-H leader’s house. The kids were hot, stinky and tired. Dustin was soaked from the quick bath he gave his pig, Georgia, and I was still cranky. Jack and Summer walked their sheep, but the other’s behind them were antsy. I was embarrassed to admit that the reason the sheep were acting up was because we all smelled so strong of swine feces that the sheep were unable to concentrate. It was terrible; sheep were jumping for no apparent reason and kids were being dragged around trying to collect them and get them back in line. Finally, I informed the 4-H leader of what the problem might be. In other words, I confessed. We stunk! We did learn however, that sheep don’t like the color red and we had been keeping a red halter on our sheep Diva, who was the main jumper, the whole time that we had been training her.

            When we returned home, Summer and I removed the collar and we could not believe how much calmer she was. Had we only known this a month ago, things might have turned out very differently with Diva.

            I baked tomatoes and quesadillas for dinner and went straight to bed. As on other stressed out woman once said, tomorrow is another day…

AUGUST 28, 2011: Water, Water Everywhere! Finally!!!

            We don’t have to be up at 4:30 today! Yeah!!! But I wake up at 5:00 anyway, so I get to blog. Excited about that. It is hard to find the time to keep this diary entered every day. Without the water, chores are taking longer than normal and a schedule like mine doesn’t have room for errors. Shelly brings CJ over today to play with the kids one more time before he starts school on Tuesday. He thinks it’s kind of exciting not having water. I wish I could see it all through his mind. The kids act like they are camping; brushing their teeth with bottles water, failing to wash their hands at all, peeing outside just beyond the fence. Oh yeah, it’s all fun, fun, fun for them. All I can see is dirt. I like to think that with my skills at adaption to trying situations like this I would be able to survive in the 1800’s. This little trial is making me think differently. I like water. I like electricity. I like to shave my legs!

            At 8:30 I get more water from Dick’s house. He is still calm and supporting as always. I get to shower, and though this may seem to personal, I did get to shave my legs. I think that is the first time I’ve actually smiled in three days. On the way back home it starts to rain. This is odd. I don’t recall a chance of rain today. We don’t need rain on the crops, but secretly I’m hoping it hits my yard! I missed so many fertilizer dates with my yard this year so it wasn’t emerald green like I like it to be anyway. This lack of water has made it positively brown. I close my eyes when I walk in the house now so that I don’t have to see the brown patches! But the rain, ahhh, the rain. I will never tell Wave that I rolled down my window and smelled the air and smiled. Luckily, it did rain at our house, but not on the crops, so I take a lunch out to Wave and manage to sneak in a ride since Jack is at Grandma Jan’s for the rest of the afternoon. On the way to Wave I throw kids out at the pool – that is my favorite term in the summer – I throw them out. They discovered that the pool closes for good on Wednesday. My heart sinks a little. Summer is officially over. It is usually over for this family when harvest starts, but this year harvest was late, so we got a taste of summer during the dog days of August. I don’t think I’m ready to let it go just yet!

            After the ride, I go back home, retrieve Brett and take him to Wave so that he can learn to drive the big trucks and rush home again to fix a flat tire on the bus that we will be taking to the fair – yes, I said bus, don’t ask! The battery on the bus was dead, so I gave up on the tire and washed dishes instead. It was a long, arduous process, but at least there were no kids here so I got to turn up the radio and relax. Once I finished that, I picked up the kids from the pool, took CJ home so that he could go to football practice, and then went to Tekoa to work pigs. Brett finally coaxed them all into being weighed by offering them a whole bag of marshmallows! One was 255. The two others look they might be 280. That is very good news but we are thining of holding off on the marshmallows for the two larger ones from now one. If they go over 300 pounds before next week they are out of the fair.

            As we leave the FFA barn, we notice a pressure in the air that was not there before. They called for a 30% chance of rain, but this feels different. If I lived in Tornado Alley I would have been scared. We shower at Grandma’s and as we are leaving it begins to rain. I love my Grandma. She is so sweet to us. She always has a smile on and towels ready. She is always calm and caring even amidst our stink and stress. She tells us stories of when Grandpa worked at the pig barn and the kids laugh. I hope I can be that way when my kids have a crisis.

            As we leave, it rains just a little at first, but by the time we get home the wind is blowing something fierce. I call the guys on the radio to see how it is out in the field. It’s fine so far. It’s then that the lightening strikes. I tell Chad that if the wind starts blowing his has about five minutes before the rain. Chad says it has already started to blow, and is just about to say there is no rain when he says, “Forget it. It’s here.”

            Wave makes the executive call that they will stay out there until the field is done. They are so close there is no point in stopping now. I rush to get steaks on the Bar-b-que, hopeful that I can make it before it’s full of water. The rain is pouring in buckets, the wind is raging, and dark has fallen early. The kids are excited with their flashlights and umbrella’s. Brett holds one over the bar-b-que every time I have to open it to flip the steaks. I’m going on feel here, because I can’t tell if the steaks are red of black anymore and frankly I don’t care. I can hear the guys on the radio laughing every time the lightening strikes, but we all have the same feeling. You do not want to be the tallest metal object in a field in a storm like this. Ken calls for 34 and then before he gets his question or comment out we hear him say, “Oh shit! That was too close!”  34, Chad, responds by saying, “I’m heading down to the ditch.”

            We hold our breath for a moment, letting the steaks burn. Our minds are full of images that I do not want to imagine. Rain is bad enough. Being trapped in a combine on a hill in a lightening storm takes the adventure out of everything. Finally, they are laughing again and I have time to pull the steaks off. They are black, but we don’t care. We eat and go to bed with our flashlights in hand. 

AUGUST 27, 2011: Summer’s 11th Birthday

The numbers 4-3-0 are becoming my nemesis. So are the letter’s AM. I cannot figure out how our neighbors who pick Brett up every morning with their own young athletes in tow are always so chipper. All I care about is coffee and quiet time with my book. I finish Water for Elephants his morning. It was amazing. I don’t want to give away any of the book for those of you who might read it, but it is the type of ending that makes you think the author is selfless. That is all I’m going to say about that!

            After I finish the book, I stand up to face the reality of my own lack of water. Everything in the house is taking on a dusty look even if it is imagined by me. I believe I mentioned my OCD in a previous diary entry, and how I manage on most days with five kids to keep by reactions to my affliction under control. Let’s just say that the little devil on my shoulder is starting to squirm and my stomach is already turning in knots and this is only day two without water.

            I ignore the dust in favor of figuring out how to water my flower pots outside. Shelly spent so much time helping me put color around my house and with our minimal water on a normal day they aren’t exactly the best looking plants, but they are all I have. The thought of watching them die before September even hits makes me irritable at best. Finally, I come up with a solution. Pond water! I have about a 10% increase in good hormones just from doing this one little act!

            Thank goodness that sheep and pigs still have water. That is one less thing that I have to worry about since it could be 95 degrees today. The mud bog has a little water left in it as well, so the pigs will be able to cool themselves for today anyway.

            Wave took summer to breakfast for her birthday, so that gives me time to make lunches, do what cleaning I can and collect laundry. When Summer returns we all run to Tekoa to meet my family for lunch at C&D’s. It was good, but it took over two hours and we still have to wash pigs and figure out where to shower next.

            At the pig barn, we start to work Brett’s pig in the arena and realize that it is just too damn hot by now. Thank goodness Brett is in tune with his Dominess’s personality enough to realize that he was not just being stubborn. We barely got the pig back in the barn upon Brett’s insistence before the pig just about passed out. We spent the next hour cooling his nose with water in order to bring him back to life. I am starting to have breathing problems from the stress!

            After two overly fattening (but yummy) meals, Summer feels much the same way as Dominess, so we rush though showers at my grandmother’s house and then I bring her back home with orders that she is to stay the rest of her birthday on the couch, in the basement, where it is cool. I think she was fine with that.

            That afternoon, I went to Dick’s to refill the water jugs, return to heat water for dishes and somehow managed a spaghetti dinner. I will not stop cooking even without water. That would through me over the edge for sure. I finished the night by heating enough water to dump pans over Wave’s head again before we went to bed. Thank goodness there haven’t been many break downs or I might not be able to handle all of this for the next four days! 

AUGUST 26, 2011: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Farm Wife Without Water!

After getting Brett up at 430 and sending him out the door, I start collecting more laundry and dishes. At 630 AM I haul them to Dick’s and take a long hot shower. It feels amazing and I am almost on the verge of tears when I have to shut it off and get out. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to go through the next five days, and sadly I know me. I know my temperament. It’s not the best on a normal day with kids nagging at me, schedules being altered for parts runs and pig runs, and kids needs. I like structure. I like to make a list every morning and I am not in a good mood unless three quarters of that list is done by the time I crawl into bed. I used to be foul if anything on the list got skipped, and it took years to force myself to be happy with only a fraction of that. Now, there is no way I will get anything done and I know that I am the one person who has to keep it together. As one of my old bosses told me, “ If Amy has a good day, then everyone has a good day. If Amy has a bad day, well then everyone has a bad day.” I thought at the time that that gives one person too much credit, but I learned over the years that it is true. There is just something about my aura that bounces off others like radio waves, so if I want my husband to keep harvesting with the same attitude that he has tried to hard to maintain this year, I have to keep it together.

I play phone tag all day with the pump guys until I finally nail them down for a time. We have to survive on the generosity of our family until Monday at 1:00 PM. I take a deep breath and swallow the internal scream that is trying to build. Therefore, instead of screaming with the kids around, I make a list of everything we will need to survive hour by hour until that time. Then, I drive to the store – alone so that I can vent in the car – and buy bottled water, paper plates, paper cups, and beer.

Wave’s mom, husband, and Wave’s sisters, bless their hearts, have decided to take all of the kids for the day and go to the lake. They too are my hero’s – as always! After they are delivered, minus Brett who is too old to go frolicking at the lake when he could be texting his girlfriend – I give up on my lists and sneak a ride and a beer in with Wave. Tears are close when I see him, but I hold them back. I don’t cry. There is no point in wasting tears on something you cannot change anyway. Instead we have a beer and a couple laughs.

Our neighbor’s grain truck burned up in a fire this afternoon and another loses a header in the middle of the road, so I guess I can’t bitch too much. We are having a great harvest, the kids are trying their hardest to be good as gold, and our family is taking time out of their lives to help us.  While I am out with Wave we have a small smoldering fire in our combine. I hold my breath preparing for two of the three bad omens that are destined to come our way, but the guys handle it and get is out before there is a problem.

I return home to take Brett to wash pigs. It takes a whole bag of marshmallows and we are covered in pig poop when it is over, but we got ‘er done! My mom says I’m a real farm hand now. I tell her I just want their hams to taste good! Then we head to Grandma’s to shower, minus all of the normal kids in toe. My mom and my aunt are there and we get to sit and visit for a long while. That was exactly what I needed! Then, we return home to wrap Summer’s birthday present and forage around in the fridge to prepare something for Wave for dinner. My big plan of making home cooked meals every night is out the door, so I walk to the summer list and cross that one off for good. 

AUGUST 25, 2011: Water, Water...nowhere?

Up at 430 again. Turned the sprinkler on before I left to pick up Brett and came home to find no running water! Now, I grew up on a farm that had limited water, similar to ours, and one day the well went dry and we didn’t have water for five years. Five years! Can you imagine? I had graduated by the time they completely lost the well and we in the process of digging the fifth one that would be dry. My mom had to haul her laundry to town to wash it and they could only take baths and showers on occasion when the little bit of water that would seep into the well could be harnessed. This morning, with a husband in a dirty field, lunches and dinners to be made, and four boys who need to work with their pigs, we don’t have a drop.

I don’t want to radio Wave about this, but what choice do I have? Thank goodness my husband can multi-task and keep his cool in situations that would have left me slamming phones into the wall. (FYI: That comes later)

Wave told me to call our electrician, and friend, Kevin. Thank goodness he can come out today. He says he’s getting calls for a lot of well issues right now. I ask him if it’s the hot weather, the solar flares, fate returning to try and scare the crap out of me, or what? He says it’s the pump. It’s dead, and we have to call another guy. While that might be bad news to some, to me this is great. Bad pump means we still have a viable well. I call the other guy, he can’t be here until Monday. That is almost a week from now. While I cringe, I must remind myself to say a little thanks again for the fact that water is possible within less than five days- instead of five years. The worst part about it is that I have been so busy I have not been able to do laundry, and today was supposed to be that day. In addition to that, it is 90 degrees outside and I have animals in the barn that need water. I also have kids that need water and a husband that will need bathed tonight!

Thank goodness for family! I call Wave’s dad in a controlled panic, tell him the situation and he snaps into motion – just as he always does when we have a minor crisis on the farm. He readies his laundry, empties his dishwasher and turns over his downstairs bathroom to us for our use during the next week. Not wanting to overwhelm one family member with our monster size brood and amazing amount of dirt and stink this August, I also call my grandma in Tekoa as well. She does the exact same thing as Dick. Our families are so amazing I make a mental note that I am a slave to the next person in need in either of them!

After that, I haul the kids to Tekoa to wash and work their fair pigs. As I have told the kids before, animals sense moods. Well, they must have sensed that all hell broke loose in our house and have decided to mimic their observation by completely mauling each other and the children. We come back home grumbling something about fate, and freaking pigs, and I instruct the kids to bathe in the hot tub water. I will then drain the hot tub, which needs it anyway. I think that act alone, climbing into a vat of warm water, calmed their nerves because they were laughing by the time they finished. When it was my turn, I lingered, stared at our farm, which is dry on a normal day, and said goodbye to what little flowers I managed to keep alive this year. At 630 PM I resign myself of the fact that this will be the way it is no matter if I scream about it or not, and I take the kids to a movie at the old theater in Tekoa. For two hours, we eat candy, drink ice cold water, and hope to hell we got the pig smell off so I neighbors don’t point and whisper about us.

After that, we go back home a little calmer. I heat water for dishes and for Wave’s “bath.” He was invited to go to his Dad’s of course, but I know my husband. Once home, he is not leaving, and the chance washing like you are camping will be too overwhelming for him. Luckily, it is a warm night, so we stand out by the hot tub and I dump pans of warm water over him until he is well…clean enough.