Northern Farmer

Windy and cold, and getting colder this late in the day here. I got everything done and headed for cover, spring is not in the air here. More like Siberia. They say it’s supposed to be colder tomorrow so I figure the family should pack up after morning chores and head north around twenty miles to the boot shop that I buy my work boots from. It’s a yearly event right around this time of year. I was reminded today when the sole of my packer work boot felt off for the umpteenth time. And the sides are close to blowing out on those boots, so I best do something quick. But they’re some good boots to go through everything around here for twelve months. The boot store is in a small town, and all they handle is work boots. And do they have business for being out in the middle of nowhere, wow. They don’t handle the fancy boots, they just sell and repair boots like I need. I guess other folks have the same ideas in footwear as me. We’re still holding off planting seeds indoors, and also holding off incubating our own chicks out. To cold in this neck of the woods. Sure am glad we don’t start calving until the middle of April. I always figured when I see them calving in winter that the owner should join them and see how it feels being born when it’s sub zero out. First, get buck naked, hose yourself down with warm water just to make it realistic, then go quick and lay in the far corner of the cow lot in the windiest spot for an hour or two. An experience like that will forever bond the person to the calves that are born in this weather, probably in the great beyond with some of the calves that didn’t make it. Oh well, just my opinion.

But soon the jobs will be starting as time marches on here, and I’m looking forward to this spring more than any of years past. When the weather does break it’ll begin. Cleaning barns and lots, fanning grain for seed right here on the farm, and countless other jobs in the short spring of the north country. Family garden preparations and early planting are some of the most looked forward to jobs. Gotta get them taters and onions in quick. Get the oats fanned and planted as soon as possible, the earlier the better, that’s the secret to raising oats. I can’t wait to get out in the fields to our land that’s coming alive again, being tended the way God intended it to be. And the days get long so we just keep on plugging outside, enjoying it so much after a long winter.

In spring when we’re working in the gardens here in the evenings the newborn calves, well, week old calves and older, form gangs. And in the evenings these gangs will go running past the gardens on the other side of the fence like a streak. Back and forth across the seven acre calving pasture so fast it’s incredible. As we’re working all we can do is smile and laugh as the gangs go flying past having fun. You can’t buy entertainment that good. The summer birds have returned and the silence of winter is broken. By the creek ducks and geese are everywhere. Pheasant roosters are cackling in the distant fields. We can hear the wild turkeys in the back forty. Across the hay field the returning deer are coming out in herds. In the creek there are Suckers and Northern Pike spawning. And as we work as a family we know we are doing the right thing. How could we ever imagine wanting anything else?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 5:33 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.