Category: Adventures

1st Dirty Dozen of Homeownership…

Matt and I got the keys to our new home this past Friday!! The house is nice, the surrounding areas are…well…overgrown to say the least!  It’s has some farmable land, and some timber land, and lot of blackberry and weed land.  But being the young energetic couple that we are, we’re looking forward to the challenge!

We have had the place to work on for about 2.5 days now.  And in this time I’m already amazed at how much I’ve learned…so here my friends are the dirty dozen (so far) of homeownership…

1. Always wear closed toed shoes and long pants with long sleeves!  I know it’s 80 degrees out today, but the cuts from the briars aren’t worth it! Neither are the looks from your future husband saying, “I thought I was marrying a farm girl, why do you have shorts on?!”

2. At some point you have to put a machete into use…just fair warning, always keep an eye on the machete, a real close eye when I’m swinging!  I’m effective, but dangerous!

3. Don’t mention lunch, because afterwards it will be all you can think about.

4. When using the weed wacker, stay away from the plants with burrs.  They turn into bullets and shoot out at you.  Then when you complain and your future husband again gives you the “Let’s buck up a little bit here” look, this time tell him he can do it and laugh when afterwards he looks at you and says, “Woah these things feel like bullets!”

5. Take enough breaks that when you’re tired you still remember how much you love the guy next to you, how exciting this is, and how wonderful it will be in the future!

6. When using a blower to clean the house, those big HUGE spiders that live in corners…they will shoot out at you and give you a heart attack, you will dance around on the front porch like a maniac screaming, and once you calm down enough you will step and kill the gigantic creature!

7. Be aware that when your old place was original the owners liked putting up fences, everywhere!  Wirey fences that will either trip the heck out of you, or catch on your mower.

8. If they get caught on your mower like a booby trap, you can’t pull on it and make it better, you can’t go faster to get out of the mess.  No, no, at that point you resign that it’s now going to take an hour to actually remove the mower blades to get them unstuck…oops!

9. When you’re sent into the green house that is covered in briars so much that we didn’t originally know it was there, just to check out if there is anything “worth saving” inside; no one will blame you when you decide not to go through the 32 thick spider webs with fat spiders in them.  Instead just crane your neck from afar…and give the good old, “looks pretty worthless from here” thumbs up.

10. Never let me use the weed wacker with the actual blade vs. the string, I hit my foot three times and my leg twice!  Each time thanking God that I wasn’t using the blade one, I think I would have been a little less than effective if I had cut off my leg or foot yesterday!

11. When you’re just having a ball and you look at each other and say, “Gosh we should start a landscaping business!” 16 hours later…well let’s just say we’re not in the landscape business as of yet!

12. Good things come to those who wait!  I can’t wait for what is yet to come for us!!

Swathing Demo…or Roller Coaster Ride??

A fair warning…my nerdy farming side comes out in this blog post a bit.  I get quite excited about new equipment so bear with me…

For most farmers harvesting equipment doesn’t come cheap and it isn’t something that you buy without a “test drive”; it’s such an integral part of getting our seed crops to market that usually buying something is no small venture.  So when it comes time to check out what is new and exciting in the world of seed production harvesting equipment we usually jump at the chance to try out some new toys.  This week we got to demo a new swather.

Maybe I should start at the beginning, seeing as many of my readers aren’t necessarily farmers.  Swathing is the first step in grass seed harvest.  It is basically “windrowing”, or cutting the crop into rows that can then be picked up by the combine.  In the area where I live this all done through the night; with seed production it is very important that the seed stays on the straw so that it can get into the combine.  So we have to cut when the dew is on the plants in order to allow the seed to not shatter, or fall off of the straw.

Windrows on the left, what hasn’t been swathed on the right.

We have two swathers right now that do a great job.  But again, as I said, when you get the chance to try out a new piece of machinery…it’s not a question of if, more of when can I get my hands on it?!  So they showed up at 4am the other morning…and I was excited!  I took a few rounds as the passenger and then they gave me the wheel.

After getting the hang of things…still looking quite focused!

Now here is where this whole roller coaster idea comes into play.  Because our swathers that we have now, run about 4mph while we’re cutting, this new machine, runs over 10!!!  I agree that in a car, this seems like a snails pace.  But when you’re on a machine with knives swinging around like crazy, bouncing over grass stubble, trying to drive a straight line, 10 miles an hour feels like you’re hitting the autobon at 120mph!!  Plus if you’ve ever worked on a farm you know how fast things can go wrong at a mere 1.8mph on a combine, yes, multiply that stress by 5!  You can say I hardly took my eyes off the windrow or my white knuckled hands off the wheel!  And to tack onto that, it’s not that you’re just going fast, you’re also steering the machine from the rear tires.  These babies turn on a dime, a very fast dime!  I did a few cookies (ROOKIE!), I’ll have to admit, but I think that if they would maybe let me demo it for the season (wink, wink) I would get the hang of it!

I’m not making this up…I was going 10.4!!!!

I have to say though, the machine did cut a wonderful windrow!  As the first step in harvest, having a good windrow is something that can’t be overlooked.  It will be interesting to see how this field combines compared to others.  Personally I love demos, however getting back into my 4.0mph swather did seem a bit boring after this crazy experience.  They have a good video out that shows some examples of this baby at work, pretty impressive.

10 Things you need to know when dating a Fisherman…

This one isn’t all about farming…it covers a few more of the “normal” sides of my life about love & fishing.  Just for those who do not know…I’m in love with a fisherman, a hunter, an outdoor enthusiast, a landscape designer, a wood furniture builder, an excavator, a kind man, a grateful man, and a humble man…I’m also lucky enough that all of these men (seeing as multiple boyfriends can be frowned upon) are part of one awesome guy!  He claims that since we have known each other for so long, he has nothing new to learn about me (ha ha), I on the other hand have learned so much I could probably write a book.  The first chapter would probably be entitled, “How to Date a guy with 100 hobbies”….but until then I’ll just share a bit about what I’ve learned about dating a fisherman first.

  1. 4:30am is not early, if you’re up to catch fish.
  2. Don’t plan things on Saturdays or Sundays, or really any day of the week during fishing season…because it will get canceled.
  3. Patience is key, they truly don’t call it catching for a reason.
  4. You don’t have to be quiet, but you also don’t have to talk the whole time…sitting in silence it totally fine while out on the water.
  5. It’s important to watch your pole, because the moment you aren’t watching it…that’s when you’ll miss the fish!
  6. If you do happen to get a fish on, it’s quite alright to be given stern advice at a hurried pace at for the next 5 minutes while you reel him in (at first I called it yelling, but I was assured that it wasn’t)…don’t worry the fisherman still loves you, he’s just a bit excited!
  7. It’s very important to tell the fisherman well in advance of having to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW…give him some time to get back to the dock otherwise you’ll be peeing in a bucket.
  8. Bringing along food is a must, the fisherman won’t always tell you to bring food, you’re the guest out there on the water…you bring the food, period.
  9. And when you bring food…whatever you do don’t bring a banana onto the boat…I don’t know why, but this a rule and it’s not to be crossed.
  10. Understand that fishing is their true love, you’re great and all, but don’t mess with their fishing!!

My fisherman & I after a great day on the river!