Brown: Farm milestones as important as others

Graduations, birthdays, your first solo tractor-driving job... Designated markers of time and accomplishment are important to us. They come in all sizes. Some are celebrated by many, some are celebrated by a few, and some are celebrated in solitude. Some are unique to the individual, but many are shared and understood by others.

Audra Brown

Down on the Farm

Growing up in the field of agriculture, there are definitely some life milestones that are worth mentioning. There are markers of size and age. You’ll never forget the first time you drove through a gate, the first time you drove by yourself to Grandma’s house, the day when you could finally drive while looking over the steering wheel rather than through, and the oddly uneventful day when you are finally authorized to drive to town and get parts and supplies alone.

Strength is another characteristic that we like to measure. Rather than pounds, it is more apt to note measurements in the all-important universal unit of feed sacks. (They weigh 50 pounds, if you need the conversion.) It is a special day when you step on the scales and find that you weigh as much as a feed sack. Though the more proud day is a day sometime earlier, when you found that you were strong enough to lift a feed sack. One should always be striving to lift the next multiple of feed sacks that is greater than your own weight.

In the late single digits, when tractor-driving jobs are old-hat, they are nonetheless limited until the achievement of certain feats. One moves up a level the day you are able to clutch a John Deere tractor. One advances again when you are strong enough (or smart enough) to lift and attach a tongue to the draw bar. One is in high-demand when you can roll the tarp on and off of a semi-truck trailer or the grain cart. (This can be accelerated if your folks take the time to extend the grain-cart tarp handle a few feet so as to make it reachable by those of shorter stature.

Big enough (or deft enough) to climb atop a free-standing bale of hay, confident enough to jump across to another row of hay bales, tall enough not to need a box to reach the controls on the hydraulic cattle chute… there is a long list, but that’s all for today.

Audra Brown can reach all the controls. Contact her at:

[email protected]. Find more about her and her new books at:

http://www.audra-brown.com