For Our Brother and Sister Farmers in the Widwest

This summer, we have watched the stories of farmers in the midwest who are suffering through one of the worst droughts in 50 years. We shook our heads at pictures of corn plants that were only half sized and starving for rain. We've gritted out teeth as we heard that many ranchers had to send their cattle to market early instead of risking their loss by the drought. We sent good thoughts to those soybean farmers who were unsure whether they would get good yields, and all through it we prayed that we would not see a similar fate this year.

Farming is one of those jobs that no matter how big the combines get, how fast the trucks fly to the elevator, or how strong you think you have made your business, it can all be for not if Mother Nature chooses not to cooperate in your area.

Sadly, for the midwest, it appears that Mother Nature has decided to slam them with first a right hook and then, while they were down, a left. First, they are impacted by the worst drought in 50 years, and now, while the fields are dry and brittle, they are going to be lamb blasted with the remnants of Hurricane Isaac. From what I understand, it will help some farmers and could turn other dry fields into muddy bogs.

Therefore, while it is annoying to be broken down more than usual, stressful to worry about the costs of parts and labor, and exhausting putting in 16-17 hour days, we, here on the Palouse, have nothing to complain about compared to our brother and sister farmers in the midwest. Our thoughts go out to you. 

There ARE Canadian Werewolves In Our Barley Field

     After a long, long, long day in the field yesterday, my 7-year-old and I came home to spit-shine the house and make dinner before The Boss and hired hands came in for the evening. It was 7:00 and I had just started the salad and made myself a drink when I heard the combine drivers bantering back and forth about the pack of coyotes who were following along behind the combine tires attempting to catch the field mice that were scurrying out of their burrows. Jack had been playing with his new airplane at the counter while I started the taco meat. I was smiling at the light banter wafting over the hum of combines. After the difficult days we have had this harvest, it was very nice to hear the men and women just chatting with one another about such a normal event. Jack had just laid his head on the counter to watch the pilot flying his styrofoam plane when one of the combine drivers caught his attention. 

     "They were werewolves," he said. 

     I looked at Jack, who picked his head up and turned quickly to the radio. I practically spit my drink on the counter as I rushed over to the radio and pressed the call button to silence the driver. I was concerned that this was going to cause a night of terror and one little boy squishing me in my bed. 

     "You did it now," I said lightly to the driver, hoping to convey the problem. "Jack heard you." 

     "Oops," the driver said. "Sorry about that."

     Jack quickly walked over to the radio and I asked if he could talk to the driver, so I handed him the radio in hopes that the driver would let him know that he was joking. 

     "Jack to 37," he professionally called. 

     "Yeah, Jack," he said. "This is 37." 

     "What did he look like? Was he brown of grey?" 

     As the combine driver calmly explained that he was brown, and not real big, Jack was nodding his head and thinking as hard as his little brain could go.

     "Okay," Jack said. "What you have there is a Canadian Werewolf. They can be scary and can be mean." 

     "I thought so," the combine driver continued. "That was why I stayed in my combine." 

     "That's good," Jack said. "Did you see yellow eyes?" 

      Holy Hell, I thought. 

     "Nope," the hand said. "No yellow eyes, but I didn't get real close either." 

     "That's good," Jack said. "You better stay in your combine though just to be safe." 

     "Copy that," the driver said. 

     "Okay," Jack said. "Jack out." 

     When Jack got off the radio, he calmly walked back to the counter and picked up his plane, resuming his concentration on the pilot. 

     "Boy," he said. "It's a good thing I talked to him. Canadian Werewolves are the worst." 

There Is A Snake In Your Bathtub

Last night our hired gal wandered out of the shower with a weird smile on her face. I asked her if she had a nice shower and she responded, "I did. After I got the snake out of the bathtub." 

The funny thing about this is that we don't have snakes here. Sadly, in 10 years I have never see one anywhere on our property or anywhere on the Palouse. I was just about to ask her what in the world she was talking about when I suddenly remembered that my 7-year-old had bought a yellow and black plastic snake at a yard sale the previous day. Apparently, this was a snake that grew when placed in water overnight. It grew all right and when our poor hired hand walked in and opened the glass door on the bathtub it just about gave her a heart attack. 

My Husband Is Not THE BOSS Anymore...

I'm not sure what happened to him, or if he hired someone else to take his place this Harvest, but my husband is not The Boss anymore. When he needs parts he says please and thank-you, when he tells me to flag the combines one way, and then I proceed to lead them the other way, he simply helps me turn around, when I bring supplies out to the field he smiles and looks me in the eye and often gives me a pat on the back, and he actually kisses me and hugs me when he comes in the door at night. And all of that without watering down his sweet tea with whiskey, and I can't imagine why.

Today we were out of bed at 5:00 AM, with him headed out to the field and me headed 30 miles away for parts. The kids were still asleep, so I quickly made the crew their lunches and set them out in the yard for pick up. Then I filled the service truck with diesel, washed the windows, and cleaned out all of the garbage out of the cab. I tidied up the house and pre-shower I was out the door and in the car. By 7:30 I had picked up belts and pullies from the parts department and managed to sneak in a little grocery something - this is something that farms wives sneak in on the sly. The Boss might be on his best behavior, but you never, never stop for anything else when they are sitting in the heat, in the field, waiting for parts so they can start working. I delivered the parts and got back home just in time to see the kiddos getting up for breakfast. I was here no more than an hour, just long enough to put groceries away, clean the bedroom, and start some laundry when I got the call again. We needed more belts.

By 10:00 this morning, I had already driven for parts twice. When I got back The Boss, at least I think he is The Boss, was covered from head to toe in chaff, which is the scaly dry casings that go around the seed, as well as a bunch of dust and some ground up stubble. Now, unless you have driven a truck or a combine you cannot -  no matter how much you try and imagine it or compare it to some kind of itch that you have been through - even begin to comprehend how much chaff falling like snow around you on a normal day itches. Today, my husband had to actually get in the back of the combine where the chaff spits out the back and dig it all out with his hands, pulling to toward him, his shirt, his sweaty body and all the way down to his feet. Getting plugged happens, and as a result, unplugging happens as well, but when it happens on a 97 degree day, before noon, when you will be out in the field without a shower until almost 10:00 PM, that would put anyone in a bad, bad, bad mood.

But, for some reason when I pull up with the second set of parts, he manages to walk over, smile and once again say Thank You! I'm starting to wonder just where The Boss is. Maybe he hired a stand in and is really on a beach in Tahiti somewhere.

"Bitch Please!"

Note to my readers: If there are typos, confusions, yawning, and a general sense of delirium surrounding this it is only to add to give you a real feel for what harvest does to all of us here on the front line. Therefore, you are welcome...and good night.

"Bitch Please!" and "Oh Hell No!"

Those are the favorite sayings of the Mommies, and they are so apt now. I have not written in a couple of days because A. I've been busier than a bee in a hive at honey making time and B. I'm not sure if most people know this, but there is a code of silence in farming that a writer like myself does not understand, and yet is supposed to be as faithful to as a wedding vow.

That being said, "Bitch Please!" and "Oh Hell No!" have come to mind so much in these sunrise of this harvest season that I am willing to break the code of silence to tell you a little about WHY.

"Uggh!" (Another Mommy Meeting favorite.)

Here is the deal: today started out like every other day this harvest, waking at 5:00 AM to a cup of coffee and heading out the door. Today, we were moving to a new field, so I had to make a pot of coffee, barely wake the kiddos to tell them that I would be gone for a while, and sneak out the door in order to follow these orders: "Get Truck A. Meet at Field 1. Jump in truck B. Take it to Hired Hand X, who will then give you a ride back to Truck A where we will all be waiting to go to Field 2. (take a drink of coffee; pretend to process this information) In the meantime, have Hired Hand B go get fuel and meet us at Field 2, and oh  yeah, give B directions because B won't know where it is." (Drink again. Smile, nod, give The Boss a kiss, and pretend you've heard any more than "Get Truck A.") The only problem is that by the time you get to Field 1, the plans have changed because there is a break down.

That is pretty much every morning before 5:00 AM, but today we not only had one combine breakdown, but two, and we had one truck break down as well. So, now we are down to two combines, one good truck and one back up truck that cannot keep up with the combines.

Oh well, we get it all done, and I return home to get hired hand X (I think) only to discover that my son's rabbit Fiver wanted to get out to play in the grass; therefore, while X waited in the car for me, I reached in to open the hatch for Fiver who promptly bit deep into the soft flesh between my thumb and wrist. "Bitch Please!" I was screaming as I pulled my hand out of the rabbit cage only to discover the rabbit had a lock on my wrist and was not about to let go. Now, I'm not an animal lover (remember the sheep, people!) but I am not an animal hater either; however, when that rabbit would not let go and the pain was too much to bear, I could do nothing more than grab my coffe cup and whap him over the head with it. ( And no, it is not the one I peed in!)

Now, PETA relax before you get all up in my business and turn me in for abusing this blood sucking rabbit! At this point the coffee cup seemed more humane than the thoughts of the potatoes and carrots and chicken broth that I really wanted to water board him with at that moment. Kidding! (Not really, but for liability purposes I have to say that.) Anyway, as I looked down at my punctured flesh that hurt as if rattlesnake venom were coursing through my veins, I started cussing. And not a little cussing, but a helluva lot of cussing. I used all the bad words I could think of and I might have even made a few up. I was whooping and hollering and dancing and swinging that cup, and all the while X was staring at me, as was my son. They were not amused, and X thought that I was a little out of line. Bitch Please! 

I thought that would be the highlight of the day until about 3 hours later when the combines were moved and I was back home getting ready to take the kids to register for school -which I am NOT ready for- when hired hand Z comes in to let me know that the state patrol was doing a sting in our wee-little-itty-bitty farming town and our only truck that can keep up with the combine capacity has been shut down and told to return home.

"OH HELL NO!" 

Now, you all know I'm a faithful liberal. I am a democrat, an Obama lover and a Hillary junkie. She's my heroine - in all senses of the word, but Bitch Please! ARe you friggin serious? (Yep, another gem!) 

And this plays right into all the stuff you are not supposed to say in farming. It has taken me a heck of a long time to learn that farming is like being in a big family; there are some things that you just don't discuss: money, religion, and politics. But, Oh Hell No! Don't you people have another better to waste our tax payor dollars on than pulling over farmers on the second day of harvest when they are trying to do nothing more than to get their crop to market? I mean seriously? Is this what you got up for this morning? Is this what you strapped that gun your hip for, and placed your badge on your chest, or wherever the hell you place it these days? Is this what your swore to protect, and defend? You are out on the road protecting the people against farmers and truck drivers who are only trying to make a living in the short window of opportunity that we have between one rain storm and the next. And why are they doing this? In my somewhat informed opinion it can only be as a way to balance the state budget that our current state administration - as well as so many others before them - has been lax in doing. I have been supportive to our local school administration when our governor has taken money from their accounts in order to follow the voter- approved state mandate that was put in place to balance the budget at all costs all the while driving home on roads that have been rumbled stripped, ripped up and rumble stripped again because opps! someone did it wrong the first time. I have listened to people who have worked plowing roads for the state bitch (please! haha) because they were mandated to be at work during a dry winter and sit on their dead asses watching The Real World and whatever other non-reality based nonsense is on the boob-tube because the state had allocated money for that position and therefore, in order to keep that money flowing to that position should the snow ever decide to fall, the money had to be spent on that position no matter what. Otherwise, some necktie junkie might decide that the best way to balance the budget would be to get rid of that snow plow drivers because there hasn't been a need for them for the past two winters.  Bitch Please! Is your Mama actually proud of you as you adjust your necktie on capital hill and mandate rules for the "little people" who are stupid enough to live in the Real World beneath you? Let me make it simple for you while you feather your hair: don't rumble strip the road on a highway where there have rarely been any head on collisions from people crossing the yellow line unexpectedly, don't promise money to our schools and then steal it back because your incapable of balancingy our budget in the first place, only pay for a plow driver when it is needed, and leave the hard workers in this state the hell alone so we can do our jobs and not end up on the welfare rolls!  Is that clear enough?

Have the politicians not seen the news? We have farmers in the midwest who have no crop because of drought. These are people who will now have to rely on government aid to bolster them up because times are hard. How's that for balancing your budget? 

I know this goes against all of my liberal upbringing, and some people in my neighborhood are going to go all smug about what is stuck in my craw because they blame the liberals for bigger government and over reach and all of that blah, blah, blah, but seriously? On this issue? I know it is environmentally important for our trucks to be in tip top shape and not be spitting emissions up into the atmosphere. I am an environmental FREAK! I want that more than anyone. And, I know it is important that we follow the letter of the law, but for shit sakes, (another fav) we are only on the road for 4 weeks out of the year. 4 weeks. We are not full time truckers, and in most cases, our trucks never even leave the dirt roads. In many cases we travel less than 20 miles from our homes on any given year.  So, why send out a troop of State Patrolmen to pull over the whole of the little town of Oakesdale on Main Street at the ass-crack of dawn on the second day of harvest? Bitch Please and Oh Hell No! I've got a better idea. Why don't you take those big suburbans and diesel sucking monster trucks you are driving and spend your time busting child molesters, and thieves, and drug dealers for the next three weeks and leave us good citizen, tax payers, and damn hard workers the hell alone. 

Hell, after harvest, you can come over, inspect my truck, tell me what I need to do to be environmentally friendly, and I'll even thank you and buy you a beer. Until then, leave us the hell alone and let us do our job! 

Amen Sista! 

(Yep...another Mommy Meeting Doozy!) 

T Minus 3 Hours And Counting

Well folks, it's here. Ready or not, here we go. Preparing for harvest is like planning for a family reunion, Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, and giving birth all at the same time. Dramatic? I doubt most farm wives would think so. For the past two weeks I have been shopping, planning, cooking, cleaning, cooking some more, and cleaning some more just to prepare for what is about to happen 3 hours from now.

At 1 o'clock today, my oldest son is coming home to clean out his combine and start cutting wheat for the first time. This evening my AWESOME mother-in-law will arrive with her camper, 19+ dozen cookies, multiple precooked frozen meals, kimchi for me!!! and that amazing elbow grease and unending patience and advise that I know I can count on from her. Tomorrow morning our truck driver will move in her camper and we will welcome one other truck driver and a new combine driver that I have yet to meet, but that I pray likes my cooking! 

Yesterday we had a fabulous car wash for 4-H. Those kiddos hustled and washed 37 cars and made well over $500. My arms still hurt, but it was blast!!! Last night,  I managed to make 4 batches of my girlfriend's yummy cheesy campfire potatoes, a ton of Frank's Red Hot Chicken (recipe credited to another girlfriend!), some BBQ chicken and a pesto pasta. I also filled all of the fire extinguishers, so if there is a fire story in here this year, it will be my fault, and I managed to harvest some of my own crop - my raspberries to make raspberry jam and put away pie filling. At about 5:30 my girlfriend stopped by to tell me that she is pregnant. (I'm still crying!!!) and my father-in-law dropped off boxes of peaches that needed canned right now! And you all wonder why I have yet to publish another book, right? 

Today, starting at 6:00 AM I wrapped my sleeping son in a blanket and moved a truck out to the field, sharing probably the last cup of coffee that I will share with my husband for a month. I already miss him like crazy, but I am happy for him too. This is what his does. This is to him like a book signing is to me. This is why we do what we do, as an old friend of my so eloquently philosophized every time he drank whiskey and got to talking about farming. 

Since then, I have been Spring cleaning! My house looks freaking amazing, until...T Minus 3 Hours from now. 

Here We Go Again!

I can't believe it is "that time of the year" again! Time for school clothes shopping, harvest, canning, baking, preparing for fall sports, the Palouse Empire Fair, and of course...time for my husband to turn back into THE BOSS!

For those of you who are new to this blog, or have simply forgotten because it has been so long since I have blogged about my life, I will tell you that I am a writer, mother of five children, volunteer librarian for the Oakesdale Grade School, one of the assistant coaches for our new AwEsOmE Cross Country Team, farm wife, and of course unpaid hired hand to the man who is my husband for all but three seasons of the year : Spring Work, Harvest, and Fall Work. We are now about to enter Harvest, at which time the man who has been my best friend, my husband, my ally, and my confidant will turn back into THE BOSS!

The hardest thing about Harvest for me is morphing from wife into employee - especially when your a pro-bono employee. The job of a farm wife is simple; make lunches in the morning for 2-3 people, get breakfast for the kids, clean the house, run for parts, move equipment, run kids to the pool, find time to transport kids to school shopping and fall sports practices, run drinks out if someone forgets to grab enough, drive 30 miles for more parts, make lunch for kids, clean up again, do laundry, mow the lawn or weed flower gardens, water the lawn, help kids work their animals because the fair is looming (YEAH!!), move more equipment, try and can a fruit two, or freeze veggies, get dinner going, oh crap! kids need picked up from the pool, serve dinner to the kiddos, and then be ready to listen to the events of the day while The Boss showers and eats dinner. And that's just one day.

It doesn't look that bad in writing, and if it is done right, it isn't that bad. It's the things you don't plan for that get you. Accidentally running out of bread, running out of water like last year, break downs, kids getting sick, having a lawn mower break down and having to decide whether to tell The Boss and have him out working on it at 11 at night when he should be sleeping, or just letting the lawn grown a foot tall and see if anyone notices. Harvest is not a gentle rhythm, it is a constant drum beat that only speeds up and gets louder and more chaotic until all of a sudden, someone tells you to STOP!  It's over. And you have been so busy you didn't even know it.

My husband and I have been doing this together for ten years and in that time I have cried, yelled, screamed, cried some more, ran over his lunch box with the farm truck innumerable times in one sitting when he complained about something that I can no longer remember, and even told him to Go explicative himself, on the radio where three other farm families and all of our hired hands were listening, simply because he didn't say thank you.

However, I have always made him a lunch, always fed him his dinner, and even laid out his towel and sweats in a candle lit bathroom as a way of saying, "I'm sorry for over-reacting to you being an insensitive, over stressed monster today who never tells me thank you for all of the hard work I do from 6 AM to 10 PM and for forgetting to telling me you love me for four weeks ever season. Clearly I was out of line. My bad."

Often it takes my mother-in-law who is an ex-farm wife herself, my father, an ex-farmer, my father-in-law, and my mother, all of who farmed as well, to keep me cooking with the frying pans instead of beating The Boss over the head with it. They all remind me, depending on which on I call, that ALL farmers all like this - and especially one whose harvest is the sole support for six people and three employees. They have to remind me that come late September or early October he will look up again and smile and hug me and say, "Wow, we did it again! We made it! Thanks for the help." Who me?

This year however, The Boss decided to take a pre-emptive strike. Last week he took me out to dinner and a movie, took me camping alone, has texted me to tell me he misses me - and that man hates texting, and went shopping with me to help me get prepared for harvest cooking so that I will not be so stressed out. At the end of all of that, I said, "Are you just doing this so that I will be nice to you this harvest when you are so caught up in work that you forget all about me and how hard I am working too?"

He put his arm around me and got a sly smile on his face and said, "No (good answer), but it sure would be a bonus if you were nice."

 Okay...I promise I will be nice...cross my heart!

Here We Go Again!

I can't believe it is "that time of the year" again! Time for school clothes shopping, harvest, canning, baking, preparing for fall sports, the Palouse Empire Fair, and of course...time for my husband to turn back into THE BOSS!

For those of you who are new to this blog, or have simply forgotten because it has been so long since I have blogged about my life, I will tell you that I am a writer, mother of five children, volunteer librarian for the Oakesdale Grade School, one of the assistant coaches for our new AwEsOmE Cross Country Team, farm wife, and of course unpaid hired hand to the man who is my husband for all but three seasons of the year : Spring Work, Harvest, and Fall Work. We are now about to enter Harvest, at which time the man who has been my best friend, my husband, my ally, and my confidant will turn back into THE BOSS!

The hardest thing about Harvest for me is morphing from wife into employee - especially when your a pro-bono employee. The job of a farm wife is simple; make lunches in the morning for 2-3 people, get breakfast for the kids, clean the house, run for parts, move equipment, run kids to the pool, find time to transport kids to school shopping and fall sports practices, run drinks out if someone forgets to grab enough, drive 30 miles for more parts, make lunch for kids, clean up again, do laundry, mow the lawn or weed flower gardens, water the lawn, help kids work their animals because the fair is looming (YEAH!!), move more equipment, try and can a fruit two, or freeze veggies, get dinner going, oh crap! kids need picked up from the pool, serve dinner to the kiddos, and then be ready to listen to the events of the day while The Boss showers and eats dinner. And that's just one day.

It doesn't look that bad in writing, and if it is done right, it isn't that bad. It's the things you don't plan for that get you. Accidentally running out of bread, running out of water like last year, break downs, kids getting sick, having a lawn mower break down and having to decide whether to tell The Boss and have him out working on it at 11 at night when he should be sleeping, or just letting the lawn grown a foot tall and see if anyone notices. Harvest is not a gentle rhythm, it is a constant drum beat that only speeds up and gets louder and more chaotic until all of a sudden, someone tells you to STOP!  It's over. And you have been so busy you didn't even know it.

My husband and I have been doing this together for ten years and in that time I have cried, yelled, screamed, cried some more, ran over his lunch box with the farm truck innumerable times in one sitting when he complained about something that I can no longer remember, and even told him to Go explicative himself, on the radio where three other farm families and all of our hired hands were listening, simply because he didn't say thank you.

However, I have always made him a lunch, always fed him his dinner, and even laid out his towel and sweats in a candle lit bathroom as a way of saying, "I'm sorry for over-reacting to you being an insensitive, over stressed monster today who never tells me thank you for all of the hard work I do from 6 AM to 10 PM and for forgetting to telling me you love me for four weeks ever season. Clearly I was out of line. My bad."

Often it takes my mother-in-law who is an ex-farm wife herself, my father, an ex-farmer, my father-in-law, and my mother, all of who farmed as well, to keep me cooking with the frying pans instead of beating The Boss over the head with it. They all remind me, depending on which on I call, that ALL farmers all like this - and especially one whose harvest is the sole support for six people and three employees. They have to remind me that come late September or early October he will look up again and smile and hug me and say, "Wow, we did it again! We made it! Thanks for the help." Who me?

This year however, The Boss decided to take a pre-emptive strike. Last week he took me out to dinner and a movie, took me camping alone, has texted me to tell me he misses me - and that man hates texting, and went shopping with me to help me get prepared for harvest cooking so that I will not be so stressed out. At the end of all of that, I said, "Are you just doing this so that I will be nice to you this harvest when you are so caught up in work that you forget all about me and how hard I am working too?"

He put his arm around me and got a sly smile on his face and said, "No (good answer), but it sure would be a bonus if you were nice."

 Okay...I promise I will be nice...cross my heart!