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"There may come a time in your life when you will need a doctor or a lawyer, but three times a day, everyday, you need a farmer."
I myself am not a farmer, but I hold a large respect for what they do day in and day out. I have done a little haying here and there and there is almost nothing worse than being the wagon boy on a 90+ degree day, and these guys sign up for it every year. They bust there asses so that we can eat and stay alive.
For how much they mean to society, they never seem to get the respect they deserve. Way to many people think food comes from the grocery store, and fail to see all the hours, blood, and sweat that goes into harvesting everything that is in that grocery store.
Lets use this thread to show some respect for the men and women who feed this world, or share a farming story of your own.
I don't disrespect farmers but I don't feel the need to thank people at every step of the process of growing, sewing, building, shipping, engineering, and whatever else with any of the goods I purchase.
AT-ATand there is almost nothing worse than being the wagon boy on a 90+ degree day, and these guys sign up for it every year.
Oh yeah there is. Being in the loft. It's 15 degrees hotter and unless you have 3+ people you do a lot more work than the guys on the wagon loadin the lift. However, both are hard as fuck.
I'm from Buffalo so it doesn't get too hot here but I don't know how people down south and out west do it. 85 degrees is a good day for them and here people act like it's unbearable Haha
My uncle owns a farm and I grew up there. To be completely honest you learn so much more about life than you do anywhere else. It's an awesome experience. Yeah you don't always make a lot of money but you make enough to get by and it really puts a lot of things into perspective. Farmers break their backs day in and day out for little money and they all deserve a form of respect. Some people give more respect than others and that's totally cool but it's really sad to see people assume that farmers are dumb rednecks. They really do understand more about the economy, mechanics, and biology than you'd believe.
MinggOh yeah there is. Being in the loft. It's 15 degrees hotter and unless you have 3+ people you do a lot more work than the guys on the wagon loadin the lift. However, both are hard as fuck.
I'm from Buffalo so it doesn't get too hot here but I don't know how people down south and out west do it. 85 degrees is a good day for them and here people act like it's unbearable Haha
How could i forget about the loft. You are correct much worse than the wagon.
I went to school in buffalo and my uncle has a farm out in alden. He has 12 chickens and 8 beef cows. Its just his hobby, but it is still nice to have some fresh eggs and home raised steak.
AT-ATHow could i forget about the loft. You are correct much worse than the wagon.
I went to school in buffalo and my uncle has a farm out in alden. He has 12 chickens and 8 beef cows. Its just his hobby, but it is still nice to have some fresh eggs and home raised steak.
Haha it was just your minds way of repressing the terrible memories...
Oh really? That's awesome! To some people it might sound bad but the meat tastes so much better. It's the only real way to know what your actually eating too.
The farmers that you need every day are essentially assembly line workers in industrial plants run by shithead companies like Monsanto that churn out corn products, not the ones hand-loading a hay loft
no_steezeThe farmers that you need every day are essentially assembly line workers in industrial plants run by shithead companies like Monsanto that churn out corn products, not the ones hand-loading a hay loft
what I admire most about farmers is how good they are at solving problems with really simple solutions. And they're also a real tight community, on the the next farm the farmer tore his ACL a couple of weeks ago and all the local farmers are taking some time out to look after his cattle.
no_steezeThe farmers that you need every day are essentially assembly line workers in industrial plants run by shithead companies like Monsanto that churn out corn products, not the ones hand-loading a hay loft
I mean everyone holds a certain value.
I just joined a CSA and I'm pretty damn stoked. I love the idea of helping out local farms and getting some awesome meat and vegetables, not the store bought shit that's been improperly stored and picked over by gross fat customers.
Work on a hay farm and we slowly dipped into grain. We now have the biggest combine on the southern island (Vancouver Island) and are growing 100+ acres of barley for breweries on the island. So worth drinking the beer you grew and watched get malted and created. Hay sucks, gotta stack 2,000+ bales some days, I tell ya it's a great work out though. I drive a ton of heavy machinery which is bad ass. Driving down the road gets a lot of looks haha.
We make around 75,000 square bales a year but last year we bought a round baling business and are already 1/3 of the way through what we did all of last year. Plus you can still swath and bale in the rain/same day.
Some pics from last year the day we transported the new round bale business home:
Me leading the pack haha
All lined up
We would dump the bale wagons but had to build a pyramid type structure on top to lay a tarp over that would could drain off easily:
Built this grain bin last year, holds 25,000 bushels of wheat:
Bale wagoning straw from wheat:
Picked up two seed drills from my bosses friend on the Saskatchewan border. I drove this beauty roughly 1500km both ways:
Combining wheat in the Gulf Islands. We got the combine on the ferry with only 2 inches to spare on both sides haha:
So yeah we grow hay, barley, wheat, lentils, faba beans, chick peas, raise turkeys for Christmas and Thanksgiving, deliver hay for horses, and many many more things I can't remember. I work around 100 hours a week, most weeks 7 days straight in the summer, get paid buttloads of money and I fucking love the work.
AT-ATnothing worse than being the wagon boy on a 90+ degree day, and these guys sign up for it every year. They bust there asses so that we can eat and stay alive.
Ain't that the truth, on the biggest days of the year we gotta out up 5,000 bales into the loft. When I was a greenhorn on the farm I was the small agile kid that would go up high into the stacks to put bales in places no one else could to make the stack more solid and more room. It's damn fucking hot up there, even more so than in the loft itself and the dust gives your lungs a thick coating right away. Really gives you motivation to get better than everyone and move up the ladder to drive the wagons, dump, and leave those suckers to stack haha.
That's dope man. Really liked the story, and the pictures are pretty badass as well.
Haha thanks man! I live on Vancouver Island so the ground isn't flat for hours which creates some beautiful scenery. Here's some pictures from this year:
Ocean and island views, Mt. Baker in WA is covered by clouds:
Finishing a 15 hour day, bale got caught so I had to fix it by climbing the back of my bale wagon, perfect photo op at night:
Co-worker and I eating lunch at a beautiful view point in a field we were picking up in:
Same cliffs:
At the end of lunch we saw some orcas swimming through the inlet and a bunch of boats following them. Was an excellent lunch break.
