Random Thoughts from a Random Farmer

Here is a short collection of thoughts that have been flitting around in my head the past few days as I've been running around on the tractor makin' hay and fixin' equipment ! As you'll see, none of these are particularly earth shattering. Well, it's been HOT you see.... :)

Livestock get sick. The more livestock and horses you have, the more likely one or more of them is going to be in ill thrift. If you have enough of either livestock or horses to make a living, some of them are going to require some sort of special/time consuming treatment more or less every day. And YOU are going to be the one treating them ! On the plus side, unlike my tenure in corporate America, mostly they don't talk back, they aren't trying to sell me something, they don't have lawyers on retainer and they aren't unionized (yet).

Equipment, no matter how well serviced or how new, has a habit of breaking down at extremely inopportune times and/or in extremely inopportune places. Sometimes the fixes are easy and relatively cheap. More often they are difficult and expensive. Like my grandad always said, it doesn't break down when it's sitting in the SHED ! Over time, I've modified this for my own use....it doesn't break down when it's sitting on the dealers lot either !

Even farmers without very much equipment have a lot of equipment. I started counting tires around here the other day and when I got to sixty I stopped. I wasn't even close to done but I was very sick of counting tires ! If you have enough equipment to make a living farming, some of it is going to require special/time consuming treatment more or less every day. Even if it's all new, it's NEVER all going to work correctly and it's never going to all be fixed at the same time. Does this thought sound disturbingly similar to # 1 ??

No matter how salubrious the climate is where you live, people who work out of doors quickly realize that the weather is inclement in various ways a lot more of the time than it's clement. It's also been my experience that most people who are passionate about [hot/cold/dry/wet/snowing/etc.] don't spend much of their time actually out in it whenever it's [hot/cold/wet/dry/snowing/etc]. Most people who DO spend a lot of time working outside generally prefer equable weather. If we had a gentle rain each night followed by partly sunny and 75 every day of the year, it'd suit me just fine.

A gorgeous spring or fall day when animals and equipment are mostly healthy, the grass is green and the temperature is superb cancels three months of whinin' about bad weather, sick animals or broken equipment. Yes, really.

A happy spouse on a gorgeous spring or fall day when animals and equipment are mostly healthy, the grass is green and the temperature is superb cancels SIX months of whinin' about bad weather, sick animals or broken equipment. Yes, really.