DAY 1: SPRING WORK: Watch out. A harrow can bite you.

I don’t like it when signals don’t work correctly. And I’m not talking about turn signals or hazard lights. I’m talking about signals a boss gives an employee. I have not been an employee for nine years now. And just to clarify for the sake of my blog, the definition of an employee is a person who works for another for financial or other compensation so please don’t try to placate me, or deviate from my intent here by trying to apply the Rosen/Romney standard to my plight.
Now back to my original comment: I have not been an employee for nine years. Back in the days when I was an employee there as one thing I appreciated in some bosses –even the ones I loathed – their ability to give good directions. If they did not give clear directions, I was not the best employee.
Yesterday, DAY 1 in my new job, the signals did not work correctly. It started out like this:
It was a nice sunny day. My boss – who I have already decided is not my husband when I am on the ethereal clock – told me that since there was little wind that day he needed to “spray.” In this case he needed to round-up our fields to prep them for planting. However, since it was a nice day he wanted to take a couple of hours to move my tractor out to the field that I would be working, and teach me to harrow. After that, he would spray and I would be done for the day because he did not want to leave me in the field alone on my first day. That makes sense to me!
By 7:30, with four kids fed and off on the school bus, I had our lunches made and was gung-ho -ready to show him that although I had no farming skills – and I mean none – I still learned a damn lot about listening and following directions, and I knew from my previous employment that I could learn fast.
So, we move out to the field and he keeps saying how important it is that he spray – right now. Living in eastern Washington, most of you know as well as I do that days without wind are at a premium around here and when you get one you better use it wisely. So, I ask him how long I will be out here. I have a reason for this, but I don’t want to tell him yet – even though it directly affects him.
To add one note, when the boss asked me to work for him he said it would be insane, asinine, crazy, and downright irresponsible for me to work after the kids get out of school. I agreed. Besides, after school, I spend most of my time moving tractors, sprayers, trucks and running for parts – so, right, I should not work. Okay, I know, I just applied the Rosen standard myself. That is called comic relief because I’m not laughing later.
Therefore, he does the math, which I swear all farmers spend have the day doing. And at this time, he is being good as gold and patient as can be with me.
“Let’s see,” he says. “It will take about two hours to teach you, but then I do need to get spraying.”
Cool, I think. Home by noon so I can do that thing I have to do this afternoon.
Now all employees know that their first day on the job they are expected to listen and not give advice, so I nod my head, look at the clock and say, “Okay. Sounds good.”
We get to the field and the boss teaches me how to start the tractor, warm it up, and lay out the harrow, which promptly gets tangled. A harrow is a series of long bars with big spikes set along each bar that when folded up can tangle like a pair of arthritic hands folded in prayer. So, we hop out and start yanking and pulling and the boss says to me, “Watch out. A harrow can bite you.”
So, I move out of the way as he starts yanking and pulling, leaving me to stand there and think, what am I going to do if he’s not here. Call him on the radio to help me unkink my chain. Hell no!

I wouldn’t hire me to stand around.
So I grab a spike that I think poses the greatest threat to our tangle and he smiles approvingly at the gesture. Let me just digress to say that men as strong, and my husband is damn strong after years of pulling harrow. So as I am holding, and he is yanking hard, hard, harder. The harrow pulls free, and promptly slams my hand between it and the harrow bar. Luckily, the spike missed my hand.
But as I am trying not to scream, throw up, pass out like a baby, my boss – who let me say has a bit of affection for this employee – rushes back to me, pulls the harrow bar out and starts apologizing. I say I’m fine and pull away, not wanting to have to press sexual harassment charges the first day on the job and all. I turn away, look down and see that between my pinkie knuckle and my ring finger is a bump with a purple bruise, not on one side, but on both and my rolling stomach tells me that it bruised all the way through. I chalk it up to lesson learned: Watch out. A harrow can bite you.
Finally, we get to the lesson, and it goes as expected. I pretty much suck. But hey, I’m not going to let that stop me. It’s my first day. So I learn and he still maintains a good attitude about it and then we stop to get him off to his sprayer and on the way back he says, “I wish I could just leave you out there.”
It is now noon and that is when I pull out the trump card that farmers are not concerned with in the heat of the move.
“I have to get our daughter from school at 3:30. I can probably go another hour.”
Once again, he’s doing the math. Keep in mind that he said I should never work after the kids get out of school, and that we were only going to be out here just to teach me and then he needed to spray.
“Damn,” he says. “This just isn’t going to work.”
“What?” I say. “Me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “There is no way you are ever going to get anything done if you have to leave early.”
I take a deep breath and remember that I hate when signals don’t work. Tell me what you want. Tell me to dig a six foot hole, two feet wide, and I will do it. Don’t tell me to dig a six foot hole, two feet wide and then three feet in act like I should have known that you wanted and 8x6.
So, being the first day on the job, I take a breath, nod my head, realize that I – as the newbie – must have missed the signals, and vowed to listen better tomorrow.
Just wait until tomorrow…it only gets better.

Did You Get the Tequila?

            It all started at 5:30 in the morning with the alarm clock going off. Where I live, you might have expected me to say that the rooster was crowing; but no, instead it was the incessant jabber of a talk show host ranting about something to do with the price of rice in China. Really, at this time, I could have cared less. All that I could hear was the fact that she had obviously had her coffee, probably Starbucks and most likely made by a barista that I would never see in my kitchen.

            Five thirty was also when the guys from the fertilizer company drove up the driveway and my husband popped out of bed like a jack-in-the-box. Therefore, I guess that I was up too, barista that I must be.

            I climbed over the six-year-old who had crawled in at some odd hour of the night, threw on my sweats and headed for the kitchen. By the time my husband had his clothes on, I had already started a pot of coffee, unloaded the dishwasher, located a piece of paper and started my list for the day. Number one, make four lunches, move the tractor, make the tea, chicken for dinner, bread, start the burn pile, trim the raspberries, rodotill the garden, move the other tractor, piano lessons at 3:00, and pee. I always put that in there as my own little joke to myself, because I know full well that this list will be a page long by the time the morning is over and I will need a break. I also know that I won’t get half of it accomplished.

            I was just on my way to the shower, knowing that it was that or a cup of coffee, when my husband said something about needing a ride to the field.

            “No problem,” I smile. “When?”

            My husband looked out the window. Here, I must digress. If any of you have read my blogs on Spring Work, you must know by now that a farmer looking out the window causes warning bells to ring in his wife’s head. Frankly, it means, “I don’t know. I’m not sure. What do you think dear?”

            However, with Spring Work being so super late this year and farmers all over the Palouse in danger of not getting their crops in on time, my farmer quickly recovered.

            “Now?” he asks.             

            “Sure,” I say. “Let me write a note to the kids.”

            Already I am doing the math in my head. It’s almost 5:45. My son, who is the early riser, will be up to shower at 6:00. Another at 6:15. If the first one isn’t out of the stall on time, there could be a fight. Oh well, I can’t worry about that now. The others won’t see the light until after 7:00, so if we get after it, I can make it back in time to start breakfast and head off any brewing fights. The drive out and back would take a half hour.

            Now, in favor of this blog not being as long a read for you as it was a day for me, let me just speed this up for you – because frankly that is how I experienced it.

            So, on the way out, I’m informed that we need to stop by the fertilizer plant, it’s only five miles out of the way. It’ll only be a second. Just have to tell someone something. Fifteen minutes later, now almost time for the second child to rise and find the note that I am MIA, we just start heading for the field.

            “Think you have time to move a truck,” he asks.

            “What truck?” I say.

            Yep, I’m gritting my teeth. He’s been in the house for the morning routine all blooming winter. He knows full well that four hungry boys can get chaotic without the mommy buffer.

            “It’s at the other field.”

            Now, dear reader, the “other” field in question is almost ten miles the other direction, and moving a truck isn’t like helping your friend move his car down the road. You have to wait a generation for it to warm up, for the farmer to pee, and then it rumbles, slowly, ever so slowly, through the field and onto the road like a very, very old man. And then, as I know all too well, there is always a chance that we may have to stop by the fertilizer plant again. 

            “Where is it going?”

            “To my dad’s.”

            Another seven miles the other way.

            “No way,” I say. “Kids need to get up.”

            “Well, that truck needs to be in the field in an hour,” he states, as if I’m delaying the work that must get done.

            “Fine,” I say. “I’ll go home, get the kids up, ask the eldest can take care of the youngest and I’ll get it done.”

            I race out to the field, practically kicking him out the door and then race back home, hoping like hell that I don’t see a cop and that I’m awake enough to drive because this barista has yet to see a cup of joe! If you think this is tedious, wait till you hear about the tequila!

            When I arrive home the fertilizer team is still there and they are unable to get a much needed nozzle working. I radio the farmer who gives me instructions in some form of farmer-speak over a jumble of other voices on the radio. I race back and forth playing the telephone game between the two of them until finally the damn nozzle magically works. Great, good. One success.

            I race in the house, now hollering for the kids to get up. I give my eldest instructions, thankful that he is willing to help and not in a bad mood. I call the father-in-law to help me move the darn truck, ask the middle child to make the youngest a lunch, and am just about to run out the door when one of the kids reminds me he needs to go to school early. Let me tell you, I flunked math, so by this time, my numbers are starting to get a little jumbled on who needs what by when.

            “Okay,” I smile. “Get your stuff.”

            Stuff attained, out the door, to the school, out to the field to meet the father-in-law, texting the eldest to inform him that I just passed the bus on our dirt road heading straight for the house. I pick up the father-in-law to help get the slow lumbering truck, get a text back from the eldest that one of the younger children has hidden his backpack and that he will “FAIL” school if I don’t find it and bring it to the school RIGHT NOW. I want to tell him that I’m not a fan of capital texting, but I’m driving so I keep it brief. OK.

            About here, I’m wishing for my list to write all this down. I move the truck, all the while have a civil political discourse with my father-in-law, race back to the house, make four lunches, find the backpack which my eldest simply left by the dryer when he got his clothes out, discover a wayward suitcase that had been left her by another kid who had stayed the night a couple of days before, a coat from yet another visiting boy, and some books I need to deliver to the school. You getting all that?

            I am just in the car when my dear husband texts that he needs his tractor moved. He’s waiting. Like time waits for no man, farmers do not wait for busy wives. Around here, excuses can get unpaid helpers such as myself fired. Right now I’m thinking that sounds damn good!  

            “No problem,” I state. “No problem at all.”

            I deliver everything, realizing that I still have not had a cup of coffee, but being a woman, I have to pee anyway. That will have to wait!

            I deliver the goods to the school, only to find my youngest upset because he forgot his lunch. I console him and magically produce the lunchbox that I found left on the counter at the house. Then I race to the field, flag the tractor, only to get a call from the hired man. He’s ready too.

            Done! I get back home, turn OFF the radio, walk straight past the list and into the office to try and edit my book for the upcoming writer’s conference. I got an hour in on my project before I got another text from the farmer.

            In favor of getting you through this, I will give you the final straw. Wish I could say it was stuffed in a blended margarita, but it wasn’t. No.

            After taking the middle child to piano in a neighboring town, helping the youngest with his homework, washing and folding laundry, and just pulling the chicken out to start dinner, I get the call from my two eldest boys that they need picked up from track. Fine, I say. We can eat leftovers tonight.

            I get back in the car, start to drive to the school and I literally have to stop at the only stop sign in town and contemplate who in the heck I am headed for; the hired man, my husband, or the kids. I laugh and sit there for minute. I’m taking a break, I laugh. Right here in the middle of town. I had almost regained my bearings again when my cell phone vibrates. I pick it up and read the text.

            “Hey,” my husband types. “It’s Cinco de Mayo. Did you remember to get the tequila?”

            Needless to say, that man did not get an answer this time.

            Now, for all of you waiting patiently – and of course on pins and needles for me to write “Why Am I a Liberal Part 2,” I will just point out that I haven’t had much time of late. However, I will get on it…after I pee.