Meditation on Machinery
Finding Peace in Broken Parts
After last week’s shot of sweet sky juice, there wasn’t a lot happening in the North until yesterday.
A harvest pause.
South winds brought a slug of late-September BTUs, prompting everyone to press play. Depending on your location, crops such as corn, wheat, and even some rogue canola are being harvested.
Besides a few locations accepting sugar beets to keep the factories going, the American Crystal campaign start was pushed back to sometime next week when more seasonable temps are expected.
I don’t think many are upset because so many other things need doing. That said, watching soybeans ripen while the neighbors run circles around us can be frustrating.
As Tony Soprano said, whatahh you gon’ do?
We found a few soys dry enough to cut, but some late-evening sprinkles and a blown charge air cooler tube slapped the kiebosh on our progress.
We only delivered two loads, but that’s two loads closer to our goal.
Despite the stress, this is my favorite season. Enjoying a wind-down vino with my fiancée the other night in 72-degree weather was a bonus.
We don't often experience years like this. Even if you’ve only a few minutes, try to take advantage.
Grain Line Thinks and Thunks
Waiting in the elevator or sugar beet line when I was younger drove me loco. My skin crawled when I wasn’t getting anything done.
Now that I’m older and like to think wiser, the script has flipped. Downtime has become a treat. Sitting with my thoughts is the time to let my wacky imagination loose.
Here’s a glance at the nonsense rattling across my mind, which never seems to downshift from overdrive:
For smoking so many cigs, Post Malone has an incredible voice.
How is it that Sheri thinks weeds like thistles and mustard are pretty while I make a yearly vow to the gods to exterminate them? What a discrepancy.
All I need is a miracle; all I need is you...Mike was nothing without the Mechanics.
I should tell the guy before me that his trailer brakes are out of adjustment.
My mind wanders.
Will anybody ever top Tommy Lee Jones match his performance in No Country For Old Men?
Shade is the product of the shadow.
Be a thermostat. Not a thermometer.
Nothing Goes Good Without a Little Trouble
Speaking of patience. While limping the broken truck home at seven miles per hour, edging out the combine in the field next to me, I realized I had a pocket full of the stuff.
I can sit through just about anything.
Where did it come from?
In the old days, when I’d break down or have to wait for something, I would piss and moan. It was annoying. Nobody wants to hear that stuff.
In 2009, from a truck stop in Pennsylvania, I called and woke girlfriend to vent about the wheels that had just fallen off my truck and bounced into the gorge a thousand feet below the interstate.
Girlfriend was not impressed, certainly not as impressed as I was that those bouncing wheels didn’t fly through a window and kill somebody.
It was quite a scene. It cost me over three grand, which meant the load of spuds I was carrying to Jersey was now free, a donation of my time.
But did I need to wake my girlfriend up at night to whine about my misfortune? Did it matter to her that I bought the wheels and tires the day before?
No. It was my problem.
In hindsight, it seems rather silly. No wonder she wrapped her things in a polka-dotted tablecloth, tied them to a broomstick, and exited Dodge.
When I called my uncle to tell him how awful my life was with this breakdown, he told me, “Adam, that’s truckin’.”
That’s truckin’? What did that mean?
Well, uncle. It only took me fifteen years to figure it out.
Things are going to go wrong. Today’s equipment is complex. In my auto service days, somebody told me the new Jeep Wagoneers have over a hundred modules.
A hundred. And, to work correctly, each module must communicate with the others.
With that much complexity, things are bound to glitch. And yet, when they break, people flip out like I did after my interstate misfortune in Pennsylvania.
Spazzing out doesn’t help. Screaming at your hired hand or service advisor doesn’t improve or fix what’s broken.
It sucks, but that’s what it’s all about. Sometimes, you’ve got to embrace the suck because it’s not going away.
Breakdowns happen.
Sometimes, the wheels fall off.
The best thing to remember this harvest is another classic line from my guy Charlie: Nothing goes good without a little trouble.
Thank you so much for reading Farming Full-Time. I wish you all the best. Be safe out there. I’ll catch you on the flip side.
Another well-written, descriptive post, Adam. Great self-awareness regarding patience. Also, dug on your "nonsense rattling across my mind."