Mostly I've been using the BCS, a walk-behind tractor with a tiller attached at the back; we're using it to kill weeds in the tire tracks (from the regular tractor). It has the same kind of engine, I think, as a regular large machine but lots of the levers and ways it works are different - you shift gears by pulling a lever in & out & around a plate with different turns on it, for example.
Also using a weed-whacker for the perimeter of the farm & clearing areas around the 7 trees in our field. Much heavier & harder to use than I would have thought, looking at it. It uses an orange plastic string (whirring around fast, obviously), not a blade. Much more appreciation for landscapers than I had before spending much time with this... Comes with great ear protection & huge safety glasses, so it's pretty fun.
And the tractor - we've been using different implements on the back & I've gotten much more comfortable changing those (lots of bolts & pins and making sure everything is correctly aligned) and with driving in the different gears. Takes much more mental focus than I sometimes have when it's hot, but it's very satisfying to be able to create clean beds, or plant a straight row.
I didn't expect to have such a mechanized farm experience (probably because I didn't know anything at all about farming when I started, so my expectations were a bit off), and I still feel ambivalent about how dependent we are on machines to do the work (will we ever have freedom from oil?). But the machines grow on me every time I use them, and there's nothing like the pleasure of seeing yourself slowly become competent & more efficient at the different tasks over time, each time better than the last.
If I ever make a "things I like about this job" post (probably will, at some point), it will include this: - This is the first job I've had where I have literally seen the results of my labor almost immediately, where I've experienced the tangible results right then & there. Not a small thing.
2 comments:
Wendell would be ashamed...but machines are definitely wonderful. And you should feel good that your farm is using such small-scale mechanical implements - no combines or anything costing over $500k, right?
This reminds me of my experiences from age 10-15 of going down to "work the farm" with my grandfather in Madison County, FLA. Definitely not the FLA advertised in the tourist marketing pamphlets!..He had a blue Ford tractor that was about 20 years old...but it worked! They run all sorts of implements of the tractor attachment. For example, one of my great-uncles grew a few acres of sugar cane until about five years ago. They had built their own tractor-powered processing plant to make cane syrup. This included a "boiler room" where they would boil the cane juice into the syrup. There was some sort of by-product that - judging by their unusually goofy behavior - must have been alcoholic. They would sit in this 100+ degree shack and drink it...pretty great Thanksgiving tradition for a bunch of tee-totaling Nazarenes!
Maybe someday I'll go down and work the family land for a summer...
Learning what we're capable of is one of my favorite parts of farming! When I worked with Katherine, we got up one morning and she pointed to a pile of metal and said "I need you to build the shed today". I looked at her like she was crazy, saying "I don't know how to build a shed!" She again pointed to the pile of metal, went about her work in the fields and by the middle of the day, I'd built a shed. It was very empowering to learn that when something needs to get done on the farm, we have many more talents than we knew. Even for driving tractors!
Much love,
Angela
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