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!”
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