Two weeks ago Andy exploded a battery when he put the cables from the battery charger on the tractor wrong. He was lucky he was in the tractor and not standing by it or we would be talking about a hospital visit. The next day he had a flat tire on the tractor he was using, lesson learned for him: You have to change the tire not just put air in it. This past Sunday the poor kid hit (just grazed no damage) my dad's new tractor. My dad's first brand new tractor in lord knows how long and Andy had to be the one to hit it. Of course he will never live it down even though there was no damage.
We have had grain bin dryers that didn't work. The bin repair people worked on one four days in a row with the same problem. As soon as they leave it would break again. Then the grain bin at our house broke. Tim would come home from work and have to work on the bin.
Then, we are not done yet...The combine broke down. That was a two day fix. This was all happening while the weather was beautiful and you kept hearing the local weather people telling farmers to wait until it rains to get the crops out because of it being dry and the potential for field fires. Now what is wrong with that advice? These people obviously have never farmed. You can not combine crops in the rain. Fires are a hazard that farmers deal with much like the weather, there is no control. Just be prepared! And my dad was, he made sure there was a fire extinguisher in the combine and a disc hooked up to a tractor. I stayed home the days they combined beans at my house, just incase.
One weekend the joke was anything Tim touched he broke. None of which was his doing and thank goodness he could fix it but hoses were coming off the tractors, the 4-wheeler froze up, the tractors that were running the auger were not working. It was just one thing after another.
Tuesday they finished all my dad's fields! Yea!
We rent some ground from Tim's mom and we are also in a 50/50 with someone on some more ground. It was time to start the harvest at these fields. We hire a friend of Tim's to combine those fields because it was closer for the them. Everything went well on Wednesday evening combining the small field at his mom's. Thursday while driving the combine to another field a wheel fell off of the combine. Scott (the owner of the combine) was so lucky he kept it under control. The road was shut down for several hours until everything could be moved. Needless to say the combine is out of commission. My dad who happen to be on the phone at the time with Scott, calls his combine man and he comes to our rescue. Now dad's combine operator is combining and Scott's crew is hauling what a combination, but it works. Now the Ethanol plant we are hauling to is getting to much corn and shut down on Friday at noon and then again this past Saturday at noon. So hopefully Monday we can be done and then begins the prep work for next year.
You might wonder what I do if I am not hauling grain and I am definitely not working on broken equipment? I am the taxi driver. I take them to the fields or pick them up when they get the equipment to the field. I am also the lunch lady. On the weekends I make sure they have one hot lunch but most of the time it is just sandwiches because they eat on the go. No stopping! A farmer starts when it is day light and they go til dark. I also usually have dinner ready as well if I am not working. I am also the photography, I love to document everything with a picture. I have so many pictures of tractors, cows, chickens it is a little ridiculous.
So you see it takes a small army to farm, a army that loves to be outside, that can work on anything that can basically take anything that is dished out and still laugh about because at the end it all gets done!
