Farmer Entertainment

One night I was in the living room watching the news, when I heard a bunch of typing sounds in the office behind me. Joe was in there. He’s not really much of a computer guy so, naturally, I was intrigued.

“Are you typing?”

Yes, he was typing. So, of course, I had a follow-up question.

“What on earth could you be typing?”

He needed to look something up.

I heard a video start playing quietly. He hollered out to me, asking how to turn up the volume. I hollered back the instructions and he got it done.

I could hear his video over my television. He wasn’t watching a music video or an episode of a favorite show he missed the week before. He was watching a promotional video – for a fuel trailer.

I didn’t comment on the loudness. I was just grateful I wasn’t in the room with him. I have been subjected to other farm-related video entertainment in the past. Not entertainment like watching “America’s Heartland.” I’m talking hardcore farmer entertainment – instructional videos.

“How to Operate Your John Deere 9100 Tractor”

I think I almost literally died of boredom that night. I am not being dramatic.

Anyway, he was moved by the video and felt the need to share from the next room.

“Hey…”

That’s his pet name for me these days – “Hey.” In college it was “Smiley.” Too many instructional and promotional videos, I’m thinking. But I digress.

“Hey… this fuel trailer just pumped 370 gallons of fuel in 11 minutes!”

Now he had my attention.

I’m just kidding. I decided to take the opportunity to use him as my latest status update on Facebook. He was a hit. I told him he was, and he threw some comment my way.

So, to humor him, I asked him to tell me about it again. I have a problem though. It’s really more of a disability. As soon as he starts talking about farm machinery, my ears immediately get clogged and I don’t really hear much. I had to ask him to repeat it a few times so I could get all the facts. He was happy to educate me.

He explained that it only took 11 minutes to empty the 370 gallons of fuel, and that included the time it took the producer to fill the combine, move the hose to a tractor, fill it up and move it to another tractor to fill.

“…and he wasn’t even running.”

God love him. I know I do – bad taste in videos and all.

 

Farm Shows

My husband and one of our hired men headed to a farm show for the day.

In the twelve years we’ve been married, I think he’s only taken off a day to go one other time. I started pushing last week for him to “just take a day and go,” because he works all of the time. Even though he’ll be going to talk, well, about farming, it will still be a day of rest and enjoyment for him.

I was folding clothes while he waited for Craig to arrive this morning. I had five tall stacks of folded clothes around me when he walked through the room.

Joe: “Would you like me to start carrying these upstairs?”

Me, confused/surprised: “Uh, only if you want to.”

He did.

When finished, I also heard him taking out the trash and picking up things in the kitchen. That’s when it occurred to me.

He’s feeling guilty for taking a day off to go “have fun” while I stay here to work today.

Bless his heart.

He probably thinks I feel a little badly because I’m not going!

Yeah, right.

Don’t get me wrong. I know there are plenty of exhibitors there that I would enjoy visiting, but here is how I see things going down if I attend the show with him:

I’ll follow Joe and Craig for the first 45 minutes. In that time, we will have seen the first two exhibits — that is, if we haven’t already run into someone from our hometown. (In that case, we’d still be just inside the entrance talking to someone we saw yesterday while out at lunch, or will see tomorrow at the service station.)

After 45 minutes of standing in one area, my blood pressure rising and feeling like I’m going to burst out of my skin if I have to listen to someone talk about the details of how something works (because there will be questions which reiterate the points over and over again), I’ll decide it’s time to take my fate for the day into my own hands and go see the farm show by myself.

I’m not a lingerer. It has to be something pretty special for me to linger beyond a couple of minutes.

I’ll see the whole enormous spread in an hour — maybe an hour and a half.

Joe will be on the fourth exhibit by then.

And I’ll have to sit in the pickup for the next six hours.

Not happening.

No, I’m not heading to the farm show. I will be working on some “catch up” work. Around the house, in the office and for a library board I sit on. Then the kids will come home and we’ll start getting ready for school pictures tomorrow.

That’ll take much of the night. I have a 10-year-old daughter.