The Hardest Way My Elders could think to do it

olgentdc · Aug 14, 2017

below there is a post about pay while growing up on the farm , I listed my experince and always enjoy reading about others lives .. but the one post that made me laugh out loud , ."Doing Jobs The Hardest Way My Elders Could Think Of ", Now Who wrote that ???. because we all got stories to tell ,. My hired help /Friend Rick always likes to talk about his granpa comin up with silly ways to do a job.. He and i Were just talking about that last week ,. when He asked me Why i was beating on a shaft ,"i just dont know why ya dont take a grinder after a ruined bearing race to get it off," instead of what i was doing ,.i actually was afraid of starting a fire , Rick said ,. the hose is rite there , spray the grass down and water it at the same time and wash that trash out of there too,then burn it off .. which we did in short order ///sometimes guys like me" cant see the Forest for the trees "

larry@stinescorner · Aug 14, 2017

My fathers favorite saying was...hard work aint easy,dry bread aint greasy

rfridy76 · Aug 15, 2017

My wife is still that way to this day.She will get a headache trying to make a simple project hard.As I usually tell her make a meal out of a sandwich.

Bruce from Can. · Aug 15, 2017

My dad like to do things the way he had always done them , and didn't really like or trust change. When I started farming on my own , he would tell me how and why what I was going to do was wrong , or wouldn't work, but being a young fella, I would just bull ahead. Once in a while he would be right , but most times the things that I wanted to do worked out. One example was putting up a silage bunker and chopping haylage, he thought it would just be a mess of wasted feed, as did my brother. I have been chopping haylage for the last 27 years.

showcrop · Aug 15, 2017

Around twenty years ago, a young couple from the city bought a farm down the road. They had started an internet access company right at the beginning, just after Al Gore invented it. They sold it for mega bucks and moved to the country to enjoy the "good life". They centered their farm on goats, selling to the Boston area ethnic market. I had been haying their fields before they bought the place so I offered to continue, and they took me up on it. I soon became aware of a lot of the things that they doing and how they were accomplishing a lot of the work that needed to be done on their farm. They had at least four full time workers including those who ran their two stores in the Boston area. The more I saw of what they were doing, the more strange everything continued to appear. I noted that they had all of their employees together for meetings very frequently. As time went on it became apparent that they were discussing upcoming jobs and how to get them done in a manner using the greatest possible amount of time and effort.

tomstractorsandtoys · Aug 15, 2017

Sounds like my Dad. He thought silage was way to expensive feed. It took a big tractor to chop and chopper and wagons and used lots more fuel than baling small square bales. I bought my own silage bagger and he thought that was a mistake untill he saw the way they keep feed. I wanted a Deere plateless planter but he insited the old Allis plate planter was good enough. After seeing the difference in my corn stands I should have bought one the day I started farming. But I still learned a lot from Dad and miss him as he has been gone 17 years now. Tom

rrlund · Aug 15, 2017

We always called it "spending three hours trying to figure out how to get out of ten minute's work".

John(OR) · Aug 15, 2017

Reminds me, years ago I farmed with ex father-in-law( notice EX ). We raised a lot of dry beans pinto's pink's and such. H was so bull headed insisted that we raked with 800 ford had to spend all day taking off fenders and changing wheels around, blocking off part of side rake and then we could only put 4 rows together. I tried to tell him if we used the Massey tricycle set on 88" we could just hook up rake and put 6 rows together took 7 yr's to talk him into it.Worked like a charm, made him so mad he went and bought a bean windrower next season. Now you understand the EX part.
Actually a very smart man been almost 50 yr's taught me a lot I still miss him.

mb58 · Aug 15, 2017

My Grandmother always said her Dad (born in 1882) had no management skills and did everything the very hardest way possible.

jwmfarms · Aug 15, 2017

One of my uncle's had a way of telling you to find a better way. He'd say "if you ain't gonna use your head, you might as well have been born with two a**es!"

d282 · Aug 15, 2017

Dad told us that the neighbor up the road would fill his corn crib in such a way it took twelve men with pick axes to get it out when they shelled. This is the same man that when he baled hay, he would stack a layer at a time. By the time he was four high he would have to lay down on the hay to pull up each bale, and then get back up to go stack it. I like to shell corn and bale hay, but not that way!

37chief · Aug 15, 2017

It may have been the hardest way, but that's just how it was done with hay. Every one did it the same way. Dad cut his hay, raked it in rows with his sulky rake. Then went down the rows and bunched it into piles. The piles were then straightened up into nice shaped piles by hand, we called it shocking hay. The piles were then taken to the stationary baler with his buck rake. He could take two piles at a time, some times three, and were pitched in by hand. Even though pick up balers were around, Dad still did it the old way. He eventually borrowed the neighbors newer baler, and baled his hay from rows, Then it was a little harder picking the bales up out of the field, and putting them onto the Chevy flat bed truck. That is when your belly came in handy. get the bale up on the edge, and push with your belly. So many memories. Stan

IaLeo · Aug 15, 2017

I knew a fellow who would do anything to avoid the physical labor of getting something done helping the elders who were getting things done "as needed on time". He would dream up rigging or work-a-rounds and spend all day, burning up good weather, creating some use-once do hickey, usually finishing about the time the grunt work was done. This subject touched my sore spot, I guess. There is a time for getting something done without wasting time or money. Leo

Northvale - PA · Aug 15, 2017

I did not grow up on a farm. But over 30 years ago I wanted to get into farming. I was fascinated by square balers, so started baling hay on the neighbor's old pasture. Because we did not know better, we dropped bales on the ground, and stacked hay by throwing them up onto the stack. Eventually we bought kicker wagons, a hay elevator, etc. mostly learned what to do and buy from watching others and trying to make the work easier and faster. The key of any business is to figure out how to do things more time efficiently.

The Hardest Way My Elders could think to do it

olgentdc

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larry@stinescorner

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rfridy76

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Bruce from Can.

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showcrop

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tomstractorsandtoys

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rrlund

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John(OR)

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mb58

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jwmfarms

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d282

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37chief

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IaLeo

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Northvale - PA

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