Geek to Farmer

My Father-in-law is here visiting with us and as man, he is a "Salt of the Earth" type of person.  Now think about that statement for a bit and be honest with yourself about what comes to your mind. To me, when I first met him, I thought he was a simpleton.  To quote RFD-TV "I'm just a farmer, plain and simple" sums up what I my first impression was of him.

How wrong I was.


When I first traveled with my then-to-be-wife to the farm house where she grew up, I got out of the car and saw the soy beans stretching off to the limit of my eyes and I exclaimed "Boy this is a lot of farm!"

The love of my life bluntly said "Mark, this is just a few acres and is a hobby for my Dad when he isn't working at the factory."

Now growing up in Southern California, I've seen some open land!
El Dorado park

Well compared to what my wife grew up with, it was the size of a pimple on a gnats ass.
The general area where my wife grew up

I really tried to absorb the vastness of acres from this raised-in-California mind, but it really didn't work.  The first clue I got was when my Wonderful Wife (WW from here on out) announced that she was going to "mow the yard."

Now, growing up in Condoland AKA Southern California, I never had to cut a blade of grass in my life, let alone "mow the yard".   I've seen yards.  Those are the pretty green things that always look like places to let the dog that my parents told me was mine, pee on so they would turn yellow in spots and piss off old Mr. Gresh.

Right?

Either way, when my WW mentioned that she was going to "mow the yard", I assumed (yes I see ASS in there) it was going to be a quick endeavor.

Oh how so wrong I was.   See it turns out that mowing the yard was a 3 hour process on a motorized lawn tractor along the lines of this lawn tractor and I was used to using these grass shears to "trim" the grass.

This was my introduction to what makes up living a farm life.

What is that?   That doesn't sound so hard?  Heck the grass needs to be cut so you jump on the lawn tractor and go for a ride and it's done.  Right?

No.

That's just the outside the house chore.

There might be still things to harvest, plant, feed, sort pigs (trust me, from the stories I've heard about raising hogs, you never want to do it), toss hay up to the barn or dry the corn kernels.

Oh did I mention the that a corn, wheat or soy bean farmer has to understand the hybrid's that the seed manufacturers are producing and also keep in compliance with the state on non-hybrid crops and oh ya, the fertilizer.... not to mention the weather affecting when you can plant and harvest.

Harvesting, if you think it's easy, I dare you to jump on a Combine and try keep a 6-row corn shell head straight.  Let me tell you, it looks easy, but it isn't.

Oddly enough, as much as a techno-geek as I am, I want to be a farmer.