A farmer/rancher's Spring

Can't believe it has been so long since I blogged on this site.  I have had plenty of blogging thoughts going around in my head, just never took the time to post.  This is where I would truly like to write and share, but it seems I am writing everywhere else:  newspaper, genealogy, class stories, family epistles, Letter to shut-in friends...  Oh well, for you few who read it I hope you enjoy this one.

Spring in the Agricultural World.      By Claudia Erickson, a farm wife.

           In this part of the nation the earth has had a rest during our cold months. When the ground starts to warm, the snow has melted and sunny days happen with more frequency the person who has chosen agriculture as his way of life always goes through an annual time of reawakening himself.

           Since the calendar was flipped to March the man who loves the land has likely been making the rounds at the auction circuit. There is a lot of speculating and planning that goes on at these various sites. Some auctions are due to a farm being sold, lock,stock and barrel, with an estate from the death of the owner. For a farmer who is just too tired to take on the task any longer everything goes: lots of equipment, tractors, pickups, office supplies for the farm business right on down to the household items like kitchen furniture and bookcases, Sometimes there is a feeling of sadness that goes with the sale. Other auctions might be a collection of farm necessities: equipment, tools, supplies that may be someone's surplus and another person's need. Pallets of nuts and bolts, twine, yard tools, the list goes on, often with surprising items. It can be very entertaining when the auctioneer gets up on the block to make a sale. Then it is,” going, going, gone.”

          This is the time of year for new birth, lambs, calves, little porkers, all with the plan of as much time as possible to gain in weight and health looking to the day the critters go to market. When the spring weather is cold it hampers both the owner of livestock and the animals. Even with the protection of a shed lambing and calving operations are doubly hard in sub-zero temperatures. The farmer becomes an around-the-clock midwife to the mothers in his herd.

           The list of things to be accomplished crowd the owner's brain as though he had been a computer gone from shut down to,”good morning, world.” Any machinery or tractor still needing a checkup after the winter are brought into the workshops and given a thorough going-over. Parts are ordered and the repair shops hum with activity, whether the place is at an implement dealers or the farmer's own workshop. Repair and maintenance, these are so important to an operating ranch/farm.

           Cultivating the fields includes a multitude of strategies. Harrows level and clean up the sleeping winter fields. It is time for spring plowing, for attempting to get the eternal crop of rocks removed from the cultivated land. Decisions are made about planting, which seeds and which fields. There is an urgent effort to get the seeds drilled into the earth so that the spring rains can give them the extra boost needed for a good start before irrigation sets in. And then begins the never-ending war on weeds. Not to be outdone, the weed population loves a good headstart and the landowner knows it is another season of finding the best way to deal with that ever-present challenge.

             Much of this revolves around the promise of water available for the coming growing season. The local water boards have their meetings and plan for cleaning out the canals and ditches that bring the water close to the land. The plans need to be put into action before the greening growth becomes an impediment to the flow of that source for all life, water.

             The sun gets up earlier, and earlier, and so does the person who counts himself fortunate to have chosen this way of life and all the joys that come from living it.