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I'm not sure if I qualify as old (OMG, I sure hope not). I've seen 35 come and go but havent yet made the 40 milestone. Generally speaking though, I can estimate acres with a fair degree of accuracy (unless its really oddball shaped with lots of swales within a 1/2 acre or so. Its not age, its experience and practice. For me, theres over 30 years of looking at the land. When most kids got a dog for a pet, I got a heifer calf, when most teenagers were playing sports I was negotiating equipment to lease and hay to cut, and everyother evening when my friends were hanging out with there girlfriend I was in line with a tanke rtruck at the distillery to haul thin stillage to cows. As far as the practice, you learn pretty quickly with a know field size as to the time it takes you to do whatever (mow, rake, etc). Then you look at similar fields and associate with the previous one. After a while it becomes second nature. Just like guessing weights or ages on cattle. Now dont get me wrong, I still under bid a batwing job b/c I misjudge the acres, still under or over estimate time or yield due to missing the acres, and still wind up buying a pen of steers with a couple of blue eyes or getting a broken mouth cow. Practice helps you do it, and expensive lessons teach you to focus (nothing like working all week and losing $500, or buying a load of steers and missing a snotty nose so in about 4 days they are all sick). Just have to get in there and do it, always begin with the end in mind, use those tractor hours to study the sky and study the land (and the best advice my dad ever gave me, never, ever waste you time of solitude listening to the radio)
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