The Education of a New Farmer: Part V

by Raven OKeefe

The Perils of Farming

Farming is a dangerous business, no doubt about that. I've learned a lot of the dangers in the past almost-year, including but not limited to:

• Terminal exhaustion, both personal and financial
• Webbed feet (applies primarily to Oregon farmers)
• Inability to speak with humans without interspersing the conversation with sharp commands like "That'll do now!" or soothing baaaas
• Picking up hay bales that have been out in the field awhile and finding a spider the size of a Volvo waiting to pounce on you
• Trying to take an egg away from a hen who's not quite through with it yet
• Tripping over a rock while running to head off a runaway ram
• Doing battle with the Nile (our irrigation ditch)
• Spending 10 minutes looking in the fridge for orange juice among all the various critter medicines and vaccines
• Falling in love with tiny little new barn kitties whose life expectancy is all too short
• Falling in love with lambs, ditto
• Developing a permanent squint from peering at cloud cover looking for a sun break
• Finding out that your bank's assurances that your property taxes were included in your mortgage were incorrect
• Having scratchy hay in all your shoes and boots
• Forgetting to take the baling twine, fencepost staples and/or odd bits of wire out of your jeans pockets before you do laundry
• Having 17 pairs of work gloves, each with one glove missing
• Being unable to put your Halloween jack-o-lanterns on the back porch because they'll be knocked into the next county by the morning rush of five Border Collies roaring out the door at warp speed
• Thinking seriously of having your gift preferences for your coming wedding registered with Coastal and Home Depot
• Knowing the owner of the feed store better than you know anyone else in town
• Scrounging around in obscure and unsavory dark corners to try to find where the damn hens are hiding their eggs THIS time
• Ending each day too tired to read, write, draw, or communicate

and

• Being totally unable to imagine wanting to live any other way.

Scio OR, October 2002