I'm writing this post for my sister, Aadrian, who after 21 years of being a farmer's daughter, doesn't seem to understand everything that dad and Frank do for the farm to run smoothly. Dad and Frank's days vary depending on the time of year. Since it's summer I'll run through a typical day at the farm, summer style.
As I've mentioned before my day begins at 4am. I get to the farm by 4:30 every morning and dad usually gets there between 5 and 5:30. That's his version of sleeping in. By the time dad gets there I will have the barn put together and if some of the cows decided to come up to the barn I'll get started milking. Then dad will head out on the four wheeler to get the rest of our lovely ladies up to the milk barn.
Once the cows are all up dad will go and grind feed for the milk cows. Since it's so hot this time of year dad prefers to do it in the mornings before it heats up. Once that is done he will usually head out to go check on our pregnant cows and check fences. He makes his rounds to make sure everyone is where they're supposed to be and to see if we've got any new babies. When he gets back to the farm Frank is usually feeding the calves by that point.
Now here we have a few different things that happen. If we are planting/harvesting dad will head out to the fields at this point. If it's raining or too wet to get in the fields then dad and Frank will work pigs. Another thing they have to take care of is all of our tractors, combines, four wheelers, etc. They do all of the oil changes on all of these things plus they also change the oil in all of the trucks that are on the farm. So different days throughout the year they will be changing oil and checking everything on the various vehicles and equipment we have out on the farm.
Lunch time is their break time. They'll come back to the farm from wherever they may be and eat lunch and dad might take a nap since he gets up early like I do. Once they're done resting for an hour or so they head back to work.
Once we hit 4pm it's time to start getting ready for the evening milking. If I'm milking in the evening then dad and Frank will come back in time to help me since I don't normally have help. On the weekends I can usually get the hubby to come out and help me in the evenings since my sister has been so MIA. This means dad and Frank have a few extra hours to stay in the field or do other things that need to be finished.
Everything I've said above is just a few of the things that they do and take care of. There's also the matter of getting parts for all of our equipment and taking equipment into the mechanic when they need a little extra TLC.
When my sister comes home from college my dad expects her to help out at the farm so dad and Frank have more time to get other things done. My sister doesn't understand why she needs to help out. She thinks that there is no point to her helping out at the farm because we can get everything done ourselves. And it is true we can get everything done without her help. Every single business in the world doesn't rely on one single person because that's just unrealistic. Running a small family farm just means there's less people to help out. My sister doesn't want to make things easier on dad, Frank, and myself. It's a crappy view for her to have, but it's what she thinks.
I wish I could make her understand the impact that one extra person can have on our family business. I know that since I came back to the farm we have become more productive with our dairy and we've also been able to plant wheat again. Before I started working at the farm full time we hadn't planted wheat for at least eight years. With dad and Frank doing the majority of the milkings they just didn't have time to keep planting wheat. Now we are back in the wheat business and it's a good place to be. We sell some of it and we also mix some of it in the feed for our cows. Everyone has a huge impact of the people around them. I hope to leave a good impact on my friends and family. Hopefully someday my sister will start leaving a good impact on her family instead of the negative impact she is currently leaving on all of us.
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