Welcome to Cow Club Med of Oregon (AKA my parent’s backyard at the farm)
As you can see it’s a lovely destination including an all you eat buffet of only the freshest greens. And yes, they accept “pies” as payment for your stay!
Category: Farming Experiences
Living a Zoo of a Life
I have been realizing more and more that life is more like a zoo than a calm flowing of one event to another. It may be because I’m pregnant, it may be because it’s spring time and I’m a farmer, and it may be because I tend to lean towards the “always busy” side of life. But no matter what the more life I get under my belt the more I realize that life does fly by and usually it’s true that it happens whether you’re having fun or not!
Although I have to say that right now at this point of my life, it’s all good stuff, so for me I can’t complain. I have these lurking sort of panther moments where I just know I’m forgetting something, all while praying it comes to be before it’s too late, before the stalking ends and I’m the fresh kill for the day.
Then there are monkey moments when you get to be goofy, when you get to laugh, even if it’s just to keep yourself from losing it! And the all too familiar elephant in the room (no not my belly thank you haha!) but the weather that seems to always want to change it’s mind and therefore change your plans on a moment to moment basis, especially in the spring time.
Then there the giraffe moments, when you can look around from a higher perspective and know that everything is just going to be ok. If you just be calm and realize that even when you’re fighting horns to horns, if it isn’t alright, then clearly it isn’t the end.
So today as I get my blog out hours later than planned, because I’ve already met with a painter, picked up chemicals, checked on a crew, looked at a few fields, tracked down a cell phone, and helped load a buggy; I can’t help but take a deep breath and remind myself that once again this is all good stuff. I think I”ll probably need a lot of reminding of that when our lives take a drastic turn here in a month with a new infant. The common question of “what are you going to do?” keeps running through my mind. So far the fake smile and “well we’ll just have to see” have been working, but the impending lion of reality is catching right up with every onsie I wash and soft blanket I fold into the crib.
I doubt this great zoo of my life will ever get any less crazy, probably just new animals to drive me nuts or make me laugh along the way.
Sidenote: This post was inspired by a campaign from Dropcam to tell the stories about zoos in your life, might be a real zoo, might be an emotional zoo, or even just a wild experience! If you’re interested in adding your story e-mail Tiffany at tpham@dropcam.com for more information.
**All photos are from a safari in Kenya in 2012.
Getting your Zzzzzz’s
Last Friday I posted a photo of a power point slide from a presentation that I went to, all about farm safety. We all joked about how funny the slide was, how a bit over the top it was, and maybe far fetched. But then I got a comment on my blog that day from a wife of a farmer in North Dakota. She wrote:
While this slide takes it WAY over the top and is quite comical, I do believe that lack of sleep for farmers is a big issue that everyone kind of sweeps under the rug. I totally understand that when there is work to be done, it MUST be done and that sleep becomes not a priority during the high times of farming. But it is simply not healthy and potentially dangerous to be operating on few hours of sleep for days on end. Not saying that it hasn’t been done for years, it is totally something I worry about as our farm is 20 miles from our house and requires him to commute back and forth during harvest/planting/etc. While I don’t believe that ENFORCING a nap time for farmers is the way to go, I think it’s an issue that many farmers don’t take seriously enough. There has got to be some happy medium where you aren’t compromising your life due to lack of sleep all while still “making hay while the sun shines”. Thanks for the giggle today!
I realized that all fun aside, she did have a very good point. Statistically people who have 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night are 2 times as likely to be involved in a sleep-related crash as those sleeping 8 hours or more!! So it’s really nothing to joke about. When we were sitting in the class they did a survey and over 60% of us said that we had driven while drowsy or tired, or even dozed off while driving. I wasn’t really that surprised by the number at first, but then when you think about how dangerous driving in those situations can be for you and for other drivers, it was a sobering statistic.
One of the first things that you hear when someone mentions a farmer is usually something about hard work. Something about how they are up with the sun and don’t rest until all the chores are done. And most times, that is true, although I’m up before the sun today to write this blog not feed the cows I still count it as a little bit of work. And the phrase, like in the comment above, “When the sun shines…” has come out of my mouth many times in this line of profession.
But all of that aside, we can’t beat out the reality that we might be putting our lives in danger by making those sacrifices. Just last year a young kid fell asleep at the wheel and hit our house, literally drove into our house (which is one heck of a story in itself for another time). He was very banged up and while recovering now, I doubt whatever he was doing to stay up was worth the pain he went through. And he’s extremely lucky, 100,000 crashes are because of someone falling asleep at the wheel, which accounts for more than 1500 deaths a year!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect farmers to not get up before the sun, and I fully understand that coming in May with this little baby and harvest coming in right after my own sleep will more than likely be down to null, but maybe it needs to become more reasonable to rest your eyes in the afternoon so that when you do head back down the road towards home after a long day, you can up your chances of getting there in one piece.
So thank you Jenny for adding a little serious to my slide last week, you hit the nail on the head with an issue that as you put it, “…sleep for farmers is a big issue that everyone kind of sweeps under the rug.”
**You can read more about what Jenny is up as a farm wife and photographer in North Dakota by checking out her blog….http://prairiecalifornian.com/
NuttyGrass 