A View from the Cab: Traditions of a farmer carry on
We all have our own habits — or traditions — in agriculture.
Have you ever farmed on Sunday? Grandpa always believed in taking Sundays off and I’m glad he did. We always like to enjoy our Sundays with family while going to church and just having a little quiet time at home after a busy week. I can count the number of times we have worked on Sundays in recent years on my hands but I prefer to sit it out for a day of rest.
I do recall the field cultivator breaking in half on a Sunday once. Perhaps it was a sign?
Someone told me if you can’t get everything done in six days, you aren’t going to get it done in seven. That’s a good point. We always manage to get the fieldwork done each year no matter what obstacles or hurdles are thrown at us.
What is your mowing situation? Do you cut your ditches short or wait until they get long and hit them with the batwing mower a few times later in the summer? Some of our ditches are cut so short you can see an ant’s behind. As I have written here in the past, we have always been a mowing family.
Sometimes you have to draw a line when mowing farms. How carried away should we get if hardly anyone ever drives by that field? While it is nice to have short grass and trimmed light poles, we need to re-examine our priorities sometimes and question how much time we are investing that could be used elsewhere.
Do you wash and wax your tractors each summer? It does feel nice on a hot day to get the pressure washer and brush out — as long as the water is hitting you and not blowing away and making it feel even warmer out. This may sound funny to wash a tractor only to have it get dirty again but it does help preserve the condition and outside appearance for years to come.
I’m not sure if waxing really does any good, since you can shine-up tractors pretty nice nowadays with soap from a high-pressure wand. That seems sufficient to me unless my kids want to get out there and start reciting the lines, “wax on, wax off” in a Karate Kid moment.
Coffee out in the field is one habit I can’t seem to kick. Though I have cut back on downing an entire Thermos during a long day of planting or harvesting, I still like to have my Yeti out there with me at least a day or two per week. Casson men have always seemed to be coffee drinkers. Now I just need to take a seat at the local coffee shop each afternoon to catch up on the small-town gossip and I’d be set!
The latest ag news, area spring planting updates, blogs and podcasts can always be found at www.centralillinoisfarmnetwork.com and by liking “Central Illinois Farm Network” on Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Pontiac Daily Leader: Kent Casson's A View from the Cab: Traditions of a farmer carry on
