The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
9/6/2011 column
Labor Day marks the close of the summer season for many people. For us, we close out the weekend with the kids and a Dairy Queen treat. It’s a nice way of celebrating all of their help over the summer and sending them off to a new school year.
Over the past couple of years, Mark is starting to see a drop in his costs as there are fewer kids at home to treat. The fact that the kids are growing up is most evident in the back-to-school picture.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Looking at the annual back-to-school photo, I see more questions than answers using up my thousand words. There are Katie and Austin hugging each other, excited about a new school year together, just the two of them. Jonathon and Michael are both starting classes at the U of MN and aren’t around for photo ops any more. As they disappear from the back to school picture, a different kind of reality starts to come into focus. It is not so much a picture of where we’ve been, but more of where we are going from here?
Reality and time are in a neck and neck race. They are racing to see who will ring our bell first when we realize that we can’t keep farming like we are still 20-something. Our minds may think we can, but our bodies are screaming “oh no we can’t”. I think Toby Keith had a hit song like that. With Jonathon and Michael off to college, our work force has been cut in half and the remaining half is hardly ever home. They are either at practices, games or meets everyday of the week between football and cross country. That’s ok. The kids need to learn how to balance school activities and responsibilities on the farm. While they learn to juggle all of their commitments, I’m learning a new routine as well.
I love being back in the barn and on the tractors again, but how am I going to get everything done? I’ve been a “float” around the farm, filling in wherever an extra hand was needed these past couple of years. As the kids started to pick up more responsibilities, I was pushed out of the daily jobs and focused on other jobs around the yard and garden. Luckily my other jobs are coming to a close as my new ones start to pick up steam.
Thankfully the grass has slowed down and I only need to mow once a week and not every third day. The garden if about finished, there are tomatoes left to can, potatoes to dig and pumpkins to finish ripening. Mark has pulled the chopper with the corn head out of the machine shed. That means the corn silage and the grape harvests are right around the corner. Here comes the tricky part.
These past few harvests have gone so smoothly with all hands on deck to help. We could keep chopping during milking and not miss a beat. Everyone had their job to do. Michael ran the chopper, Katie ran the boxes and Jonathon unloaded. Austin helped with outside chores while Mark and Al milked cows. I floated to wherever they needed an extra hand. One time we even finished milking and chopping at the same time and could call it a day.
Before the kids were big enough to help, we weren’t able to keep the chopper running during chores. We would push chopping right up to chore time. As the clock reached 4 pm we would slam the brakes on chopping and shift to chores and milking. As soon as someone could leave it was a mad dash back on the chopper until the early morning hours to get as much silage in the silo before we had to grab a quick nap and start all over again. I don’t know if I can do that routine anymore. I think it is like raising babies. There is a reason you have them when you’re younger and don’t realize you need to sleep as you walk a teething baby around the dining room table for what seems like hours in the middle of the night. You just do it because you have to but you really don’t want to go back to those sleepless nights.
What is really coming in focus is the need to start looking at changes for the future of our farm. Do we really need to milk this many cows? Can we cut back or do we step outside of the family for labor? How long will we push our bodies? It’s been said that physical labor keeps you young and in shape. At this stage in life, I think hard physical labor can age us and bend our bodies in painful shapes just as well.
Change is not something that comes easy for farmers. Why should we change when everything is working just fine as it is? But the time is coming when we will need to start making changes for ourselves and for our families as we start to focus on the reality of our future.