This summer I’m staying at school and working on the farm. It’s always seemed to me to be a sort of ‘rite of passage’ for Farm Crew members, and I succeeded in getting a spot on Summer Crew. There’s only six of us, and always a lot of work to be done. In addition to daily animal chores (once a two hour task, now closer to an hour and a half), we spend our time working on crop care, special animal tasks (like weighing beefers or trimming the sheep’s hooves), and mechanic work.
The past two weeks have been a training period for us - learning the ins and outs of daily animal care for the sub-crews we’re unfamiliar with and improving our task completion time, which allows us to move on to bigger projects sooner, get more done, and, ideally, leave on time most days. This past weekend was kind of a big deal, though. It was our first cut of hay from Berea pasture, a 16-acre field. Chase went out first, to cut the grass in preparation for drying and baling. I was assigned the next task: tedding.
The tedder is a funny little implement, and ours is particularly scrappy-looking. It wobbles madly back and forth as the tractor tows it down the road, spindly arms looking like they’re about to drop and cause a wreck. The thing is hard to explain, so here’s a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedder_(machine)
The point of this thing is to fluff up the hay after it’s been cut to make sure everything dries evenly. So Friday afternoon, Chase showed me how to hook up and operate the tedder, and sent me on my way around and around and around the field. I spent a good three or four hours on the tractor, trying to follow the lines with minimal overlap. It was hard at first to distinguish what hay I had already tedded and what was still waiting for a pass, but with time I was able to notice small differences between fluffed and un-fluffed hay. It was a fun, if surprisingly tiring day. I spent a lot of it loudly singing random verses and choruses of songs out of tune.
Saturday was the big day. First, Wendy was sent out with the rake to put the hay in windrows, followed by Ian and the baler. Not long after, Chris went out with the spear (a tractor attachment), and started arranging the big round bales in two rows of four. In the late afternoon, Wendy and Chase drove the flatbed trailer out, followed by me, Allison, and Nicole in a truck. Chris loaded eight bales onto the trailer, and we drove them out to Charlie’s barn, in a field on the other end of campus. Once there, Chase told the four of us girls that it was up to us to get these bales off-loaded, rather than Chris and the spear. Somewhat alarmed, we stared at our boss for a moment before leaping atop the bales. We positioned ourselves two and two on the second to last bales and used our legs to force the back bales off the trailer. With the others, Chase showed us the technique for moving bales. Roll, spin, and roll again, so that the bales rested between the trailer and the barn, so as not to block the trailer’s exit. Chris will come and stack these with the spear, he told us, but not for a while - he’s gotta keep organizing those new bales.
So we pushed and pulled and manipulated the massive bales off the trailer. A couple tipped onto their sides. “That’s okay. Chris can tip ‘em up,” Chase reassured each time we despaired over a fallen bale. We did two loads that night, and finished up around nine.
The next day was more of the same. Ian helped us this time, as the final bales would be made out of the leftover piles of hay that Ian had missed, under the experienced hands of Chase. We dumped two loads that afternoon before Ian, Nicole, and Allison headed back to Farm Core to complete evening chores. Wendy continued driving the trailer, Chris on the spear, and I helped Wendy in the strapping-down and off-loading processes. That night, we finished dumping all the bales at Charlie’s barn and did so before 6:30. Chris finished stacking them all undercover by 7:30. All told, we baled and hauled 224,000 lbs of hay over the weekend.
Excuse me if I feel a touch of accomplishment. :)
[video]
“Every time I read an article about conservatives being “pro- life” I am reminded of my brother who died of ALS at the age of 47. He spent the last 6 years of his life in nursing homes where the care, supervision and meals were abysmal. One of his former roommates was smoking a cigarette, fell asleep and burned to death because his diaper caught fire. Another roommate went home for the weekend to visit his mother and committed suicide in the garage of her home so that he wouldn’t have to return to the nursing home. I have to say that in all the years my brother was there I never once saw a group of conservatives out in front of the building shouting slogans about the sanctity of life and how all lives - no matter what age - are meaningful. I never once saw a group of evangelicals visiting with patients, pushing wheelchairs, or feeding the elderly residents. There were no Rick Santorums advocating on behalf of my brother who several years before had been a pro golfer and was still the father of two adorable young boys. When conservatives and evangelicals understand that ALL life really is sacred, including that of the elderly, the permanently disabled, the terminally ill, and the women and children who accidentally get bombed in the course of a war, then maybe I’ll listen to their opinions on contraceptives and/or abortion. For now, however, this is really just a politically heated argument about women’s reproductive rights and who gets to control those rights.” —
The ‘Safe, Legal, Rare’ Illusion - NYTimes.com
YES.
(via golden-notebook)
(via fuckyeahjoshlin)
We’ll have some of these little guys on the farm in the next couple days or weeks, provided Big Mama Persephone is okay with that.
(via proclivityharbored)
f
Maybe not tomorrow. But yeah.
(via fuckyeahapplejack)
“The greatest danger to our future is apathy.” — Jane Goodall (via beautifulwelshvowels)
(Source: fadedpagesandcupsoftea, via fuckyeahanthropologymajorfox)
(Source: the-true-murderous-intent, via fuckyeahapplejack)
IT IS.
(Source: shouri, via heckyeahponiesftw)
OOPS HAHA.
Yeah, since I’m at Northwestern now I was all, ‘this isn’t even relevant anymore why should I bother with updates lollllllll.’
Which was silly of me because I am still in college and things are still happening and all that. It’s just…not in NC anymore. OH WELL.
Anywayssss. Chillin’ in California now for summer. Got a job - oh yay - and a kitten through the job - oh yay! - so that’s cool. Money + kitten = happy times. ALTHOUGH. Can’t take him back to Northwestern with me, aaaand I can’t keep him here because our townhouse has a pet limit and that is THAT. So I have to figure out something for this quarter - in the hopes that I can take him back after winter break since I’m only subletting this room in this house for the fall quarter. HM.
But he’s really sweet. I keep him at work for now (in a stable!) and he follows me around work alllll day, in and out of dirty-to-clean stalls, meowing his little head off. And my god does he beg. I sit down to eat and he’s creepin’ all around my feet, climbing up my leg (ow) and then tries to eat whatever I have, whether it’s turkey or a damn banana. Yes. Bananas. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is and I am okey-dey with that.
But other than that the world is dandy. My mom and I volunteer at the library in the used book store, and they sell for something like, 25 cents to a dollar, and now I have TOO MANY BOOKS AND IT IS UNREAL. I love it. Yayyyy books. I’m trying to collect this one series called “A History of Private Life” and I have ‘From Pagan Rome to Byzantium’ and the Middle Ages - Renaissance one, but there are MORE I CAN SMELL THEM. I want them all. Someday. They were probably all donated from one person and are buried away amidst all the other books that need to be priced. ButI’llgetthemsomeday.
Spurred adviser into action! Northwestern took my app for winter 2011!
And I was accepted! Hooray me!!!