Uncle Ludwig

My uncle passed away today.  Uncle Ludwig was my dad's oldest brother.  He used to farm just a few miles north of us until dementia took away his ability to do the things he'd done for some 50 odd years.  He stayed on the farm, with his sister looking after him and Dad farming the land for a while after he couldn't farm, but eventually it got to be too much for my aunt, and Uncle Ludwig was moved to the senior's care center in town.

Uncle Ludwig was amazing at building, fixing, and restoring stuff.  The things I saw as we cleaned out his sheds last spring for a farm sale were beautiful.  There was old farm equipment, fixed up and painted bright colours.  There was stuff he had made, just thought up and built, like his metal press.  And all of his machinery and tools were kept in such nice condition.  

Once, when I was about ten or twelve years old, I somehow obtained an antique tractor seat.  It was all rusty and dented, but I took it to Uncle Ludwig and he sandblasted it and painted it for me.  All he wanted for his work was a cat, a good mouser, so we gave him one of our barn cats, named Elvis.  Every time we'd go over for a visit, Uncle Ludwig would have a story of Elvis' latest exploits for us.

We didn't know Uncle Ludwig wasn't well until his wife died.  Auntie Marlene died with little warning when I was in high school.  After that, Dad and his other siblings would check up on Uncle Ludwig, to make sure he was doing okay.  They started to notice that something wasn't right.  After Uncle Helmut had to show Uncle Ludwig how to cut hay, something he'd been doing for decades, the family sought medical advice.  We eventually learned that Uncle Ludwig had dementia.  He still loved to farm, but he couldn't do everything anymore, so Dad agreed to sharecrop the land.  For some reason, I guess I didn't understand that this wasn't a temporary thing.  I figured it would eventually all go back to normal.

The day I realized that Uncle Ludwig wasn't going to get better, I was at home, relaxing during my summer break.  Dad was baling hay at Uncle Ludwig's place.  He called Mom and asked her to bring me to the field.  When we got there, Dad asked me to rake the hay.  The briefest of glances at the field told me that the hay had already been raked and that Dad had already started baling.  Why was he asking me to rake hay that had already been raked?  Dad saw me glance at the field and offered an explanation.  Uncle Ludwig had already raked the hay, but he had gotten confused and Dad couldn't bale the hay as it was.  I took a closer look at the field then.  The hay had, indeed, been raked, but the rows were...non-existent, curving all over the place, joining together, and generally looking chaotic.  I had to redo the entire field.  Some parts were impossible to fix and I was close to tears several times trying to get through.  Dad told me to just fix it so he could bale it.  It didn't have to be perfect.  That's the day I realized Uncle Ludwig would never be the same again.  I was also the last time Uncle Ludwig got to do field work.

Even with the dementia stealing his memories, Uncle Ludwig was still the sweetest man.  When he could still live on the farm, he'd always have a dog around.  No matter which dog it was, he always called it "Pooch".  I didn't always know how to relate to Uncle Ludwig when he was confused, but I loved him.  He'll be missed.

Faces of My Farm

I talk about working on the farm a lot, so I thought I'd share some of the faces that I see on a regular basis.  Here are the faces of my farm:

Name: Dopey
Story: This is one of my calves.  He is the first calf I ever rubber ringed (definition: "castrated"). He got stepped on a few days ago, so the vet had to put a cast on his leg.  It comes off in three weeks.  His name is Dopey because he may be cute, but he's got to be the dumbest calf I've ever had the pleasure of owning.

Name: Squirt
Story: Squirt is one of my Dad's calves.  He isn't growing right because he only sucks out of one quarter of his mom's udder and won't touch the other three unless we lock his mom up and force him to drink out of all four quarters.  Dad generally only names the problem calves, hence "Squirt".

Name: Whitey
Story: Whitey is the oldest bull on our farm.  He is actually Whitey II, named after Whitey I, who was a bull on our farm when I was a child.  He's a purebred white Charlais.  He is nearing retirement.

Name: Frenchie
Story: Frenchie used to be a show bull, back before we bought him.  He's possibly the tamest of our bulls, although all of them are pretty tame and calm.  He nearly ran a small stampede over me the other day when we were sorting cows after Hot Rod and one of the other bulls ganged up on him.  Like Whitey, Frenchie is a purebred white Charlais.

Name: Hot Rod
Story: This is really the best picture I could get of Hot Rod.  He's a character. Hot Rod doesn't walk; he struts.  He's a purebred red Charlais.

Name: Angus
Story: Angus is our only purebred Red Angus bull, hence the name.

Name: Unknown
Story: This guy does have a name, but we can't remember it right now.  He's Dad's newest bull, another purebred red Charlais.

Name: Bandit
Story: Bandit is our farm dog.  We got him as an eight-week-old puppy about a year ago.  He's pretty smart, but also a bit mischievous.  His hobbies include chasing everything that moves, playing fetch, and generally being adorable.

Name: Boo
Story: Boo is our house cat.  We have barn cats, but they don't like people, so I can't introduce you to them.  Boo's hobbies include randomly tearing around the house, climbing all over everyone, and watching the birds out the window.  She and Bandit are currently negotiating terms of friendship through the screen door.

Name: Rusty the Farm Truck (because every farmer knows that every farm truck has its own personality)

So, those are the faces of my farm.  I hope you enjoyed meeting them.

Breaking In and Breaking Down: Reflections on a Week of Work

I have now completed one week (seven days) of work.  I worked Monday through Saturday last week and then today.  My reflections on these seven days of work (and that one blessed day of rest on Sunday) have led me to find two themes that seem to be awfully prominent in the past few days.

The first theme is that of breaking in.  No, I don't mean that I've turned to a life of crime and have begun burglarizing people's homes.  I'm talking about getting myself broke in to the routine and hard work that is now my everyday normal life.  Just as I break in new boots to fit my feet just right or a new cap to sit just so on my head, I need to break in my body to this life of manual labour.  I've spent the past eight months doing a lot of studying and little else.  Now, as with every summer, it is once again time to get my body accustomed to what it will be doing for the next four months.  The long months of study have reduced my hands to baby smoothness, which is fine if I'm trying to be ladylike, but not so great when there's work to do.  I'll have to rebuild the callouses that have disappeared so that I don't have to wear gloves all the time.  My muscles will also have to adjust and have been doing so as I've been picking rocks and roots in the fields.  I'd forgotten some of those muscles existed!  And of course I'll need to get used to bouncing around in the tractor all day (so much fun, but so hard on the bones by the end of a long day).  The main part of me that needs to be broken in is my mind.  I need to get used to entertaining myself on the tractor without the advantage of having books or other people around.  Sometimes I can listen to a static-filled radio program, but other times it's just me and my mind.  Finally, I'll need to adjust to the pressures and stresses that come along with farm life.  Instead of stressing over due dates for assignments or upcoming quizzes that I know about far in advance, I suddenly have to deal with unexpected difficulties,which brings me to my second theme.

The second theme I've noticed is that things break down.  Three days of the seven that I've worked I have used (or tried to use) the disc to work the fields.  Three times that same disc has broken down.  My dad and I spent a good portion of one day early last week fixing the disc and trying to get the seed drill in working order.  Today we had to borrow the neighbour's truck to get home for supper because the tractor decided to quit and blocked our way out with the grain truck and other tractor (don't worry; we got it going again after supper).  It's not really as if this is unusual either.  Breakdowns, as aggravating as they may be, are just a part of life.  How does that one reality tv show put it?  "Expect the unexpected"?  Yeah, that sounds like farm life.

Unfortunately, when you live in the non-farm world for a while, it's easy to forget about those unexpected difficulties.  Then when you come back, it gets a bit overwhelming.  By the end of last week, I was certainly overwhelmed.  I even went into fullblown panic mode over one situation on Saturday.  I can't remember the last time I panicked.  We were burning some brush piles (yes, we had a permit) and Dad left me to supervise them while he went to town with Mom.  No big deal.  Just after he left though, a spark from the pile I was watching ignited an old truck that we have parked in the back of beyond.  I tried first to put the fire out, but I only succeeded in burning a few holes in my coat and getting a lungful of smoke.  That's when I figured it was time to call Dad.  No one answered the house phone.  Dad's cell went straight to voicemail.  Mom's cell number didn't work.  I wasn't even sure if I had the right one or not.  Well, maybe they hadn't left for town yet and even if they had, Mom's cell number was in the kitchen.  I ran to the trike and rode up to the house at a barely controlled speed, only to find the house abandoned and locked.  That's when I let the panic out in one hard smack against the front door.  I'm surprised I didn't hurt my hand.  Unable to find the spare key, I ended up having the break into the house, at which point I was finally able to get a hold of my parents.  They told me to just let the truck burn, stay back, and don't let the fire spread any more.  Well, expect the unexpected.  By the time I got back to the fire, the truck was just slowly smoldering.  It never did go up in flames.  All that panic was for nothing.

Moral of the story: I'd better get myself broke in to farm life again before I break down.  I think I'll do okay, though.

Why is This Compelling?

The main part of this blog was written on April 28, 2015, while I was at a retreat, away from internet access.  It is the story of how I figured out what passion is and that I actually do have a passion for farming.  Some of my friends have mentioned in the past my passion for farming, but I could never understand what that meant.  No matter how many times I looked up "passion" in the dictionary, I could never make sense of the word.  So, here is the post I wrote earlier this week:

I feel a little bit like I just fell flat again.  I am at MARKwest, an intense, week-long study of the Gospel of Mark.  We studied Mark 4:1-34.  This is the part of Mark in which Jesus tells and explains the Parable of the Sower.  I was the only farmer (but not the only farm kid) in the room and I suddenly found myself getting really excited about the parable because it makes sense to me in so many different ways.  I quickly shared my excitement with my table group.  When we got to discussing the parable as a large group, the leader asked, "Is this story compelling?" and someone across the room replied, "No, I find it pretty boring."  A quick poll revealed that the rest of the room pretty much agreed with him.  The leader held off asking for my opinion until everyone had had a chance to agree or disagree.  Finally, I was allowed to say that I find the story extremely compelling.  That's when it all fell apart.  The leader asked, "Why is it compelling?"  I knew I was in trouble then.  You see, for all my ability to explain things through writing, I am absolutely terrible at expressing my thoughts through the spoken word.  I cannot make what's in my mind come out of my mouth, even on the rare occassions when what comes out of my mouth actually sounds pretty good.

Well, I did my best to explain what about the story is so compelling to me.  Most of the other people in the room just stared blankly at the walls, clearly not catching my enthusiasm.  Fortunately for me, S., who grew up on a farm, and J., who has worked on a farm, caught what I was trying to say and added in their own experiences and explanations as well, so the overall concept got explained fairly well.  All of my thoughts about soils, preparing the fields, and the historical context of the agriculture in the parable got put into words eventually, even if they weren't my words.

This experience got me thinking about how exciting farming is and how I wish I could make others understand the excitement.  It is ridiculously hard for me to explain my enthusiasm for agriculture to anyone other than a farmer.  I suppose it would be difficult for say, a lawyer, to explain his/her enthusiasm for the law to me and for me to really understand.  I guess it's pretty hard to really be excited about something without understanding.  Even though this is an understandable phenomenon, it sure kills my joy when others aren't as excited about agriculture as I am.

Likewise, it is difficult for me to explain my excitement about God's Word and His Kingdom to someone who is not a Christian.  As a group of Christians gather and share stories, it can be really easy to build excitement for God's work.  Explaining that excitement to an unbeliever, though, is ridiculously hard.  And, as with explaining farming stuff, the excitement can quickly wither when it is not shared.

Looking back at how the rest of the week went, I think that maybe I didn't fail as I thought I did. As with agriculture, communicating can be a community effort.  While perhaps not everyone understood what I was trying to say, I had help from some guys I barely knew to explain what I couldn't say myself.  In the end, I had several people thank me for sharing my thoughts on the parable.  They said that it really helped them to understand the parable better.  I am very glad for the week I got to spend studying God's Word in a community of believers and sharing with them my farming experiences.