You Know You Are a Farmer When....

Wednesday May 1st was May Day. which could be taken in a couple different ways. Like May Day, May Day! Someone please come rescue me from this farm which is my prison. 

Or it could be May Day, the first day of May signaling the start of summer in some areas. 

Which I am referring to in this post? Both! So, if someone wants to come and save me, show up at 2am tonight and honk 3 times. I will come a runn'in with my pillowcase full of belongings!

Does anyone celebrate May Day anymore? I remember as a kid of probably 8-10 years old, making a basket and sneaking over to my neighbor's house, hanging it on their door handle, ringing the doorbell and running. I had a crush on the neighbor girl who was probably in high school at the time. I wonder whatever happened to her. I do remember her dad went to prison for some white-collared crime. Embezzlement I believe. Good times. Actually, one of these questions was answered for me when I went down to see Holly and found out she had indeed received a couple of May Day baskets. I like the idea that people still do that. 

Now, for this week's edition of "You Know You're a Farmer When.....". I actually had several instances this week. The inspiration for this blog title actually came to me with this first one: 

1.You Know You Are a Farmer When...you do laundry and find peas in the back of the dryer when        you remove all your clothes. And again, find more in the dryer!

2. Then there are the truck tires. Going down the road the truck starts to shimmy and shake over   50mph. A normal person would think. "I need to get the tires balanced" But a farmer thinks "Time         to clean the mud off the rims" Which he never does because it eventually falls off by itself. 

3. Then there is this: you have multiple pairs of pants on the ground outside your house because they were too dirty to wear and change.

4. You pray for rain and as soon as it starts, you pray for it to stop.

5. You walk into a cow or horse barn, take a deep breath and relish in the smell. 

We didn't get as much actual farming done as we hoped to this week because of #4. This area of North Dakota is relatively dry, but certainly not this year. We got a good soaker last week and again Tuesday of this week and more again on Friday morning keeping us out of the fields three days as it was way too wet to even venture out there. 

Instead, we worked on inside projects like cutting/welding rebar and building forms for an upcoming scale project. They are putting in a scale to weigh trucks in and out as they pick up seed. It will also be handy when they take their own trucks to the elevator as well. 

As you can see, they have the forms strategically placed in front of my camper so I cannot escape in the middle of the night. 

The hope was to get the site prepped, forms in and concrete poured later in the week. 

We emptied a couple of bins this week and had to clean them. A dirty, but not horrible, job. Unless the bin happened to have oats in it. Oats are my nemesis. I don't feel it immediately, but after a few minutes in an oat bin my eyes start to water, and I get very congested. Luckily, I did not have climb into an oat bin this week. Just urea and peas. 

This is how it works...... You are loading a truck and all of a sudden, the bin becomes so empty that it will not gravity feed into the auger. If you are loading from a hopper bin, you are done and move onto the next bin. If it is a flat bottom bin, there is a lot more to get out. Some of the bins here have a permanent sweep auger, others you have to climb in and install the portable sweep auger. 

The sweep auger has a motor and is on wheels which drive the auger around the bin sweeping the rest of the grain from the floor into the primary auger that transfers it to the conveyor. 

Here is a short video of how it all comes together:

You certainly want to keep your feet and fingers away from those augers and belts! You sweep and shovel behind it until all the grain is gone. You then remove the portable auger and sweep/vacuum the floor and walls to get rid of any remaining grain that might be hiding in the cracks and crevices.

Here's the thing about getting in and out of these bins; they have bars across the opening which make it challenging to get in and out. Dylan approaches it backwards and pulls himself in with his arms. 

I, on the other hand, take a totally different approach. I prefer the sea lion method where I approach the opening and more or less throw my body through the hole while making sea lion noises. Well, actually, it is me grunting, but it I am sure all the sea lions within miles raised their heads and looked my direction every time entered and exited the bin. 

Oh wait, we did get in the field on one of those down days when Chris said "Let's go for a ride" to his dad and me. Little did we know, he was taking us out to pick rocks. 

Kinda like hunting. You drive around the field shouting "There's one", "there's one". There were not enough to warrant the rock picker going out, but they were big enough you did not want them caught up in the combine come fall. 

Speaking of things found in the field. Chris and Farmer are constantly digging up things from the past. Mostly these harness rings from old horse drawn equipment. Really makes you wonder about the history of the land, and how the previous owners toiled over putting in and harvesting crops. These little rings get caught on their shanks as they go through the field. 

And, we got the first deer blind substantially done and started another one. This second one is being built on a trailer, so it is portable. I called dibs on being the first hunter to be in it while Dylan pulls me through the countryside in search of deer. For you nonhunters out there, I a kidding, this would be highly illegal, but it would make for a funny video titled "You Know You Are a Redneck When....."

Leroy, Farmer Bob's brother-in-law, was nice enough to detail the truck and camper so it is nice and pretty when I bring it home to Barb. The inside of the camper is another story all together. After staying in it for a month, it is a disaster. I will clean it before I head home, but no matter how well I clean it, Barb is going to give it a deep cleaning before we leave for Alaska.

On our last "rain day" we set forms and poured concrete.  5 trucks worth. It was not actually raining, but too wet in the fields to get out. Although it took all day, it was actually pretty easy work as these pads were only 4'x11'. BUT they were 8' deep! They hired an excavator to dig the holes.

 The scale they are putting in has to be super accurate and cannot be affected by the frost which can get down as far as 6' hereabouts. That, plus the fact that the scale has to hold upwards of 200,000lbs, it has to be heavy duty! There is a series of 5 of these piers that the scale sits on. This picture shows the truck at the 4th one.

We would have gotten done a lot sooner had the trucks shown up on time. We had to wait an hour between trucks for most of them. Luckily, one of the guys had a concrete vibrator that keeps it from setting up. You turn it on, stick the probe in the concrete and you can feel the ground shaking from several feet away. This thing was a life saver, otherwise it would have start setting up before the next truck came!

That night found us gathering around a table in the office at 9pm. Usually my bedtime. Little did I know that I would not see bed for 5 more hours. We try to have a poker night one time while we are all together in the spring and fall. Texas Hold'em $5 buy in, winner take all. If you lost all your chips, you could buy back in for another $5, but you had to take a shot as well. 

By the end of the night, I had bought in three times, Ty 4 times, Dylan, Chris and Seth once. Bob S was the big winner never buying back in at all and taking home all the cash. Lots of laughs and good-natured ribbing. 6:30am came very quickly the next morning!

I got two pictures from Barb this week. (Who is feeling much better) Apparently this deer was a curious about the little pointy ear creature in the window as Zoey was of the big animal infringing on her domain. 

The gang (r-l Dan, Bonnie, Cheryl, Kevin, and of course Barbie) is continuing their Wednesday burger nights without me. At least they are not having a good time in my absence!

Speaking of animals, apparently, I lost both of my chairs....

And the two girls figured out I am a softy when it comes to giving them treats. 

Farmer must have been a little bored this week as he decided to take an old tractor out of the tractor graveyard and try to resurrect it. The old White back been discarded years ago for an upgraded model and was parked in the boneyard where it was destined to spend the rest of her days. 

That was until Bob had the bright idea of trying to resurrect her. A day and a half later, he had her running and parked in front of the shop. I cannot begin to describe to you what the inside of a tractor smells like after having mice and God knows what else living in it for almost a decade. 

Which leads me to my last You Know You Are a Farmer When.... you pressure spray the inside of a tractor to get rid of the smell of mouse urine in a full rain suit and face shield. I am sure those clothes did not get into the house without being left on the stoop first!

Saturday morning found me waking up in my own bed in South Dakota. What?!?! Some did rescue me! It was actually Mother Nature when the rain returned with a vengeance. When I woke up Friday morning it was raining. With the forecast showing rain on and off for the next 5 days Chris said I may as well go home as they were not going to get back into the field prior to my scheduled departure date. They are only about 50% done with planting, I wish I could have stayed to get it all in, but it just was not to be.

Having been away from home 2 days short of a month, I was anxious to get home and see my girls. As I was pulling out of the farm what song should come on the radio? Quittin' Time by Morgan Wallen I think it was a message from the radio Gods.

8 hours later as I was passing through Custer, I was greeted with this:

I left in the snow; it only seems appropriate that I return to find snow. Well, not really "appropriate" but it is what I returned to. I also returned to 3 very happy girls who were excited to see me. They jumped all over me, licking my face and smelling me wondering where I had been, and that included Barb! 

It is so good to be home!