Northern Farmer

Well, I’m in this evening early from chopping silage because of a minor breakdown on the chopper. All is going well and I’d say we’re over ninety percent done. Kinda like I am now, about ninety percent done in. Looks like we’ll have more than enough feed for the long winter.

Speaking of breakdowns there are a few laws of the universe that apply here. If anyone out there is reading this and planning on farming someday, either print this out or write it down. Because these laws are sure and solid since creation. One I’d like to touch on is 99.9% of all equiptment breakdowns happen on the weekend starting at noon Saturday. Why noon Saturday? Because, that’s when the equiptment dealer closes shop until Monday morning, or Tuesday if there is a holiday. Some of these dealers have a line at eight in the morning on Mondays. It’s got to be their most profitable hour, and believe me they have a lot of profitable hours. Now a way to get around this problem is to use older equiptment and before hand know neighbors that have the same model drug out behind their rockpile. A cheap parts store! And it’s amazing what you learn taking apart a whole machine to get at the first part that the factory assembled to build the contraption. Of course be forwarned, you will get hornet stung, spider bit , and there’s a good crop of burning weed surrounding the neighbor’s junk. But it does feel good when a hundred dollar part costs you a twelve pack and the one hour of shooting the bull with the neighbor.

Another law of the universe is this, 99.9% of all watercups break and shoot water everywhere in the barns after four thirty Saturday afternoons. This is quite simple also. The hardware stores are closing as well as the farm fleet stores. It truely looks like the critters just wait for this time to pull their dirty deeds. I’d be willing to bet that most farmers know this too, and dread going into the barns on Sunday mornings knowing what will probobly happen as they approach the barn. That gut sinking feeling when you see water flowing downhill across the yard, or in winter the glacier forming that’s not going away till late spring. And then the figuring out what to do with a couple of thousands of gallons of water all over the barn. Keeps a person on their toes, let me tell you!

The last law I’ll write down this evening was covered by Scott on Homesteader Life Blog a few months ago. The drunks always pile through your fence on Saturday night or early Sunday morning. I don’t know why we build such good fences here anymore with them dummies always driving through them. I’ll be happy when gas is twenty dollars a gallon just to slow that problem down a little.

Anyway, farming is easy Monday through Friday.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 17th, 2005 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.