As I write this, I just came in a little while ago from cleaning the chicken house. I need to warm up before heading back outside. The hens dove into the fresh, unfrozen water (yes, the ice in the earlier one just does not work for them) I placed in one room of their building while I started cleaning the other. Not the best day to be cleaning (but then it is not a favorite chore that makes any day a good day to do it), but it needed to be done. And it wasn’t raining, so at least I did not have to get wet hauling their waste to my garden. In fact, the ground was frozen solid, so the wheelbarrow moved a lot easier than if the rototilled ground had been thawed and muddy. So, maybe it was a good day to be cleaning!
I have always enjoyed working outdoors but I must admit temperature extremes are not my favorite to work in — neither sub-freezing temps nor sweltering heat. I like 55 to 70 degrees. That is perfect weather to be able to work outside all day in a T-shirt, unencumbered by restrictive clothing.
Working alone always gives me time to think without really having to think about what I am thinking about. Maybe that statement makes sense. The thoughts just come on their own and the peace and quiet gives me time to contemplate. Today? One of my thoughts was how easy my life is in so many ways and how thankful I am that we have American farmers and ranchers out there taking care of all of us. Sure, frozen water founts are an inconvenience — but that is it really, just an inconvenience with only six hens to worry about. The koi and goldfish need no care this time of year. They just sit (OK, float) there in their iced-over environments, seemingly oblivious to the cold. So I have to put on a coat and hat (I dislike stuff on my head, so the only time I wear one is in freezing weather like we are having now for a few days) before I walk outside with a partially filled waterer to tend to the chickens — again — partially filled as I know it will freeze — again — and the smaller amount of ice will be quicker and easier to thaw in the house so that I can repeat the process.
I do have it easy. I am retired without the livestock I used to tend. It was not that many years ago that I had to break ice on water troughs multiple times per day to water cows and horses when we had the kind of weather we had late last month.
I remember one year when we were living in the Lincoln Creek valley when I had half a dozen embryo transplant donor cows of my family’s in the barn at my place and we got better than a foot of snow. It was deep enough to go over the top of my rubber boots.
Do you have any idea how much water an 1,800- to 2,000-pound cow drinks in a day? All the water in the barn was frozen and my dad expected me to take care of things — he couldn’t haul water from the main ranch for me. So, four little boys did their chores and went to the house to thaw out and warm up (no school snow days) while their crazy mom packed two 5-gallon buckets of water at a time up the hill from the spring to the barn, trip after trip after trip, two or three times per day. That was back in the days when I was physically fit. Today, I was thinking how glad I was that I did not have to be doing it now. I thought about friends and others in agriculture who are out in the elements caring for their livestock, and I was thankful I did not have to be.
I wonder how our country has gotten to the point that people have no idea of the physical labor, mental hardship and social isolation that farmers and ranchers endure to feed us all. We can sit in our nice warm homes, with plenty of good food because of those men and women and their children, who are out there doing that hard work for us, fighting equipment that does not want to start or run well, frozen water, young being born and needing feed, shelter and warmth … the list goes on.
Memory is an interesting thing, and it is weird what thoughts hit us that we have not had in years. Today, I also remembered feeding cows one night after getting home from school late in the pitch black with the wind blowing like heck and rain going sideways. I was feeding in under fir trees so the cows would have some shelter — and I kept Cody, my Australian shepherd, closer than usual as we had been getting reports of a cougar on our place. I wanted Cody as a warning system if I needed him.
Oh, how the mind can wander.
Another thought today was hearing my dad tell me how easy I had it as a teacher as I only had to work 180 days a year for top pay, and that I was inside where it was warm and dry in the winter and cool in the summer. But that is another story. And I did go home from that cushy job to work evenings and weekends doing all that “real work” stuff. Funny how our mind will jump around and memories will surface when we take the time to let our mind just go where it wants.
So, as we head back into more normal weather temperatures, with the minor inconveniences we have had to deal with for a few days behind us, I hope you will each take time to think about the farmers and ranchers who work 365 days per year in all kinds of weather and conditions to feed all of us.
Stop for a moment, let your mind wander and try to envision what it would take for you to be self-sufficient. Think about the quality and quantity of food American farmers and ranchers provide for us. Take a moment to think about what it would be like if you had to feed yourself as Americans used to.
And take the time to thank the farmers and ranchers who work for you even though you have never met.
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Maureen Harkcom is president of the Lewis County Farm Bureau. She can be reached at maureen.harkcom@gmail.com.
