By Carie Moore
Around our place, things get messy. I’m talking literally, not figuratively. Not like work or marriage or kids’ schedules, but messy, as in dirty.
- The house - More people are coming in and out more times a day than during the school year. Toys, dishes, and kids’ dirty socks and underwear are laying in places every time I walk in. Some days I’m only in the house briefly, and at the end of the day I think, “Is this mess really possible? I could have sworn the kids were outside all day.”
- The fields - Rain, crop residue, dust, rocks, full sloughs, they are a mess until after planting is completed, and in some places where it’s extremely wet and they must prevent plant their land, it can stay a mess even longer. Then come weeds…
- Our clothes - From mud to dust to hydraulic oil to grease to gear lube to WD-40 to seed treatment to actual seeds, Dawn dish soap is my best friend and doesn’t leave its spot by the laundry detergent. It really does “take grease out of your way.” That’s why they use it to clean animals – like Lucky Lucy, that chicken we had – but that’s a messy story for another time.
- The yard/drive/farm site - Tractors, seeders, applicators, trailers, empty seed bags/totes, anhydrous tanks, augers, rock picker, spilled seed and granular fertilizer, mower, 4 wheelers, toys, boys socks and underwear (again), frost boils and ruts, service vehicles, sump pumps, and winter toys that were buried in snow or went through the snow blower all appear in disarray. There are no planter boxes full of pretty flowers and a manicured lawn at our place in the spring.
- The office - Fertilizer plant tickets for anhydrous and fertilizer, seed order slips, bills from co-ops, fuel and propane tank fillings, tax information, computer screen with maps of the fields and market pages, security pop ups, and of course, the match to a missing sock!
- The tractors - Here’s where I draw the line. I hate messy cabs. If I’m going to be confined in a glass box for hours and days on end then it will be emptied every night of trash and tools I used. Last night, for example, we took out fruit snack wrappers, 7 cans of energy drinks, a duct tape core, random tools, grease guns, and mouse nest fuzz from the “boss’s” tractor.
- The dog (and the kids) - From rolling in something, or manure, or jumping in the stinky sloughs, or being sprayed by a skunk, ticks, or running through the mud, he (they) are always dirty.
At the end of the day I am beat and we tackle these things and more almost every day during spring and into summer. Like I say, my life is made up of tractor rounds and coffee grounds and I wouldn’t trade (most of) it for anything else.
I am stressed and blessed to have so many things to keep me busy. And I didn’t even touch the figuratively messy stuff!!
(Even the play farm is messy!)