A Farmer's Work Is Never Done

I can think of lots of jobs when it seems like you're NEVER done.

• Laundry: You and your family are always wearing something, so no matter if the hampers are empty and you're "caught up," you never really are.
• Meals. There's always the next one to cook. I've been seeing a meme on Facebook of women who lament that nobody ever told them they'd be trying to figure out what to fix for supper for the rest of their lives.
• Picking up toys. It may last during nap time - unless that toddler starts chucking stuffed animals over the crib rails. Then the little darlings wake up and the neatly-arranged toys become a landmine as you step across the living room floor.

So I suppose it's no surprise that farming has its share of similar tasks. You build fence. And then you "un-do" the fence later.

And so it goes ... yet again.

So you might as well find the silver lining - or, in this case - the wispy cotton-candy clouds in a vibrant blue winter sky.

Or you check out the trespassers interloping in the field. (I'm not quick enough to get the photos of deer bounding away. And speaking of deer, their crashes into the electric fence make it so that you're repairing the electric fence all fall and winter anyway. Just another task that never seems to be done.)

So, in reverse fashion, we undo what was done last fall.

Randy hitches a ride on the back of the pickup and then picks up all those posts that he pounded into the ground last fall.

 

Then I follow Randy around as he putts along on the old Ford tractor. (Sometimes in the cold weather, the Ford tractor needs a pull to get it started first.)

And then I do my impression of the Grant Wood American Gothic wife - minus the bun, the black dress and the apron. Unlike in the painting, I hold onto the pitchfork as we wind the wire back on the spools so we can use it again next year.

Also this winter, we worked on permanent fencing at the Ninnescah pasture. I say "we" but it was really Randy. I was there to hold the spool on at the pickup and to be available if he bogged down - literally - in the miry wetlands near the pasture's branch of the river. (Not that I know what I would have done if it happened. Call for help?)

He was looking for ways to deter more escapees this coming summer. We spent the Summer of 2019 trying to figure out where a group of pairs kept getting out. These repairs are designed to at least give them more obstacles. (If you recall, we took the wanderers to the sale barn when they were finally caught.)

He attacks a homemade contraption to the hitch on the pickup to help unroll the barbed wire from the spool.

Excuse the wonkiness of this video that may make you seasick, but it does show how the wire comes off the spool as Randy pulls.

Yes, I made sure the wire and spool stayed on the pickup.

But I also may have had a little time to take photos of the Ninnescah while I waited. (I also had a book. It's a rough job, but I'm definitely the one destined for this one!)

I know I got the cushy job. Randy was having to traipse through cattails and pull those barbs through all the vegetation.

We'll hope it deters any wanderers this coming summer.

This afternoon, we'll pick up more electric fence wire. The sweatshirt may be optional.

Splicing Life Together

Life's just a perpetual piecing together

 of broken bits.

Author Edith Wharton

The spliced electric fence caught my eye as we were building fence.

I thought about how that fence could be a metaphor for living life. Things break. Relationships break. But we build fences between people. We splice together relationships. We find a way to fuse the old and the new.

As Randy and I worked on the fencing project, he talked about doing the job with his dad. Those miles of wire we have stored on spools are reused until they are too rusty to splice. So for several years after Melvin's death, Randy would come across splices in the electric fence wire that had been put together by his dad. Melvin had his own way to twist the wire together that made his style distinct from Randy's handiwork. As a left-handed helper, I have my own signature style, too.

 

Those splices in the fence represent a place that was broken. But when the wire is wound together in splicing, it can create something stronger than the original version.

We seem to find those connections that bind us together - whether it's family or church family or friends. At church, I typically sit near a family with three elementary-aged kids. Our prayer hymn this past Sunday was "Jesus Loves Me."

From a couple of rows behind, I heard the crystal-clear voice of a little singer belting out every word. And I again thought about the things that tie us together.

Photos from a church Christmas program back in the 1990s

That little singer's Mommy was in my Joyful Noise choir with my kids at church years ago, and I taught her those same words. Now she's teaching those words to her own kids and other children at church. More years ago than I like to admit, when I was a little girl, my own mom led the group singing in the basement of the Byers United Methodist Church. Her mama had taught her the words years before. And the legacy winds its way backwards and forwards, connecting us all.

A poster on the wall in the Byers UMC nursery

Sanctuary, Byers UMC, Photo taken June 2011

The same sense of connection strikes me every week as I hear those children recite The Lord's Prayer, word for word, just like Christ followers for generation after generation.
Sunday afternoon, as I decorated the Christmas tree, the connections felt more secure than some of the ornament hangers.

The oldest ornament on my tree is one my Grandma Leonard made when I was a little girl. This little choir boy has lost his hanger thread and he seems to have a permanent crick in his neck, but I always nestle him among the branches in a prominent place so I can see him and remember my grandparents.

I have more ornaments than space to hang them these days. But I made room for another special little angel, too. My late mother-in-law made it one year. The little angel might be having a bad hair day, but she's still beautiful to me. Even though Marie never had the opportunity to meet her great-granddaughters, Kinley and Brooke will sit under a tree decorated with some ornaments hand-fashioned with her crafty skills long ago and look at wonder at the nativity set she made in a long-ago ceramics class.

My house doesn't look like the ones on HGTV. And that's OK. I'd rather have the memories than perfectly matched holiday finery. It's these little bits and pieces that help us to splice together the memories of holidays past and strengthen these present days - kind of like links in a paper chain wrapped around a Christmas tree.

This interconnection in life has been a recurrent theme in my world in the past few weeks. Just yesterday, these words were in the epilogue of a book I'd been enjoying: 

There is a river that runs through time and universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of all existence, and every molecule of our being is part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?

From This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

It's those things that splice our lives together ... and make us strong for our journey.

P.S.: I recommend the book. I also recommend Krueger's Ordinary Grace.

Building Fence: A Link to Memories

 

I lifted my foot from the accelerator and did my mental, "one little second, two little second, three little second ... " all the way to six little seconds.

Randy and I were building fence. Well, Randy was building fence while I drove the pickup to carry the fencing supplies. My life on a farm truly has come full circle. I was probably 6 years old the first time I drove a pickup for fence building.

Kim - May 1965 - Almost 8 years old

My dad was the guy who hopped on the back of the pickup between fence post intervals way back when.

It was a bit like looking in a rearview mirror to see where you've been, I suppose.

During this latest fence-building expedition, Randy initially was telling me when to start and stop. But after awhile, I started counting the seconds between fence posts and we developed an unspoken rhythm for the work. (Hence the "one little second ..." chant.)

The fence building isn't just a deju vu experience for me. There's plenty of Randy's past tied up in the tools we use. That's especially true for the Ford 8N tractor.

These days, we have a wire winder on the back and use it for rolling out electric fence so we can move cattle to stalks for grazing.

The wire winder itself is homemade from a Model T frame, adding to the longevity of this farm workhorse.

 

 I think the rust is the only thing holding the tractor together these days.

But there is something about tradition. That tractor seat has been occupied with five different generations now. 

Melvin and Clarence bought the tractor back in the 1960s, when Randy was in grade school.

Clarence (Randy's Grandpa, seated), his Dad Melvin and Randy holding Brent in 1988. 

Clarence and Melvin used it to load silage for feeding cattle. Randy remembers using it to pull a two-row John Deere planter when they planted milo. He also cultivated milo with it when he was junior high age.

Now he uses it to roll out wire.

That wire also tells a story. There is about 1 1/2 miles of wire on each spool. At one time, Randy says they had 12 miles of wire and posts they used for temporary fencing projects.  Over the years, he's had to discard some of the rusty sections of fence that have fallen victim to inclement weather and age.

Randy says that he used to find splices in the wire that he could attribute to his dad. Melvin twisted the wire a bit differently than Randy does. So the farming legacy stretched between the two generations even after Melvin's death.

And who knows how long that tool has been called into service for fencing projects?

But all those tools - and yes, the aging people - are still getting the job done.

The fence went around sudan fields and milo stalks. Many years, we bale sudan. This year, the crop wasn't very abundant. Randy did swath the edges of the fields to make it easier to put up fence.

Last week, after the "ladies" got their OB/GYN checkups with Dr. Bruce, we moved them to the stalks for a little winter dining.

They were ready to check out their new "digs."

Now if only the deer would quit crashing in to the fence.

Don't Fence Me In

 

My first job on the farm was driving the pickup while my dad built or picked up electric fence.

I was 6 at the time.

This winter, I returned to my roots. But instead of driving the pickup for my dad, I was helping Randy. There were some differences.

• I can now reach the brake and the gas with no problem. My sister, Lisa, and I were a tag team back in the olden days.
• I was helping on the Stafford/Reno County line rather than northern Pratt County.
• Back then, I wouldn't have gotten away with saying, "Wait just a minute while I get a photo."

Randy is used to my photo obsession. And since I was the only available worker, he put up with my need to stop and focus on the meadowlark watching our progress from the fence post. And, really, he's the one who called my attention to it in the first place. What could he expect?

Randy rode on the tailgate, and I drove the pickup between electric fence posts, where he'd jump off and toss each in the back of the pickup.

Back in the 1960s, I didn't have to help wind wire onto the spool. So I learned a new job. (Maybe he said OK to all the photos because he knew I was going to eventually be wielding a pitchfork - ha!)

The wire was threaded between the tines of the pitchfork, and I was supposed to gently move the handle back and forth to evenly distribute the wire on the spool.

 I couldn't keep from channeling the American Gothic painting as I did the job.

And, besides, Randy is always glad to get a photo with the old Ford 8N tractor.

There is something about tradition. That tractor seat has been occupied with five different generations now.  Melvin and Clarence bought the tractor back in the 1960s, when Randy was in grade school. They used it to load silage for feeding cattle. Randy remembers using it to pull a two-row John Deere planter when they planted milo. He also cultivated milo with it when he was junior high age.

Clarence (Randy's Grandpa, seated), his Dad Melvin and Randy holding Brent in 1988.

Randy was insistent that the tractor served as a focal point for a 2012 Easter-time photo with Kinley and Jill. (I should have taken a photo with Randy and the girls when they were here this fall.)

April 2012

The wire winder itself is homemade from a Model T frame, adding to the longevity of this farm workhorse.

It may be tired, but it's not retired. Come to think of it, that could apply to Randy and me, too.