Write What You Know: Farming "Planting Season"

  • It's actually planting season nowish...So here are some random things you can use in your books! Why you would want to do that I don't know. But here are some little tidbits to add in.


  • Farmers basically take it slow and easy most of the year...except planting and harvest. THEN SUDDENLY EVERYTHING IS GOING AT 90 MILES AND HOUR AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • Farmers basically get up before its light out and go to bed after its light out. They're just in the seat of the tractor cab the whole time unless they stop for lunch (which is normally brought to them,) refill the seeder (seeds are also brought to them) or the tractor broke.
  • Broken tractors are usually followed by cursing and/or bad tempers. Ever worked on an old car with someone? Take that and multiply by 100 because your old car can keep sitting in the garage. This tractor? NEEDED TO BE DONE AN HOUR AGO AAAAH
  • For the people who aren't out there (there are only so many tractors), you wait around the house for the call. And whether it is "Dad's about done with field (insert field name or number) and he needs to eat! Take this sandwich out there now!" or the even more frantic "HE'S RUNNING LOW ON SEED! GO GO GO!" you drop what you're doing and go.
  • Re-supplying seed usually means taking the farm truck, frantically loading several 50+ lb bags of seed and driving out there. (And then helping tear them all open and pour them in of course.)
  • But sometimes the truck isn't there. Because the night before the person in the tractor parked it (the tractor) in the field and walked in. And then they drove the truck out the next morning with seed. So you have to run out there, get the truck, drive it back...
  • Sometimes you get stuck on the back of the seeder. Which means you stand on the little step on the back of it and "watch seed." Meaning, your job is to stand there and poke the seeds aimlessly for hours on end.
  • (We don't actually do this anymore? I think we originally just did it so that we could gauge how fast we went through seed in different planters? Or something? I don't know. I was told to stand there and poke seeds so I did.)
  • Most farmers plant corn or soybeans.
  • Sometimes wheat is also planted during the winter.
  • And I KNOW the other grains have to be grown somewhere, I've just never seen them...



    And there is probably more, but it's just about time to run some seed out there...
    If you have any questions, ask them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!






Comments

  1. Ah, this is very interesting! I live on a ranch, but we don't do a lot of seed planting. I think we get like 100lbs of seed, we have to use a tractor to fill the seeder. We just plant Alfa or oats for hay.

    astorydetective.blogspot.com

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    1. Ooh fun. We actually just started converting one of our more weedy fields to pasture this year. But we were planting more of pasture seed than hay seed...though I think there was clover and timothy in the mix.

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  2. Haha, this was fun to read! ;D

    keturahskorner.blogspot.com

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  3. i can just picture you standing there poking the seed lol

    Lia

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    Replies
    1. Lol.
      Of course now Ive graduated to seed transporter, so when they need seed I try and get out there before my brothers so I can load more seed bags than they can.

      Also, we have this habit of stopping by the feed store on the way home from church, so I go in a lot in heels. And so I will all but dive I front of my siblings so I can walk through the feed store with a fifty pound bag of feed over my shoulder.

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  4. Hey, new blog look? I approve!

    But this is the truth. It's like...nothing's happening and then EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ONCE

    I've balanced a bag of chicken feed on one hip and carried shavings on the other while walking in heels. And wearing an ankle-length maxi skirt. Cuz I was at a ladies Saturday lunch and my family decided to buy chicks...and NOT buy the things you need FOR chicks...

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    1. Thank you! It was just time for a re-haul..

      I used to hate going to the feed store on the way back from church but now it's almost worth it to see the looks of random old farmers as you stroll through with a giant feedbag balanced on your shoulder or discussing tractor parts with your dad.

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  5. I always wondered about how hectic the planting season must be. Sounds like it's pretty crazy.

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    1. It's just like you're sitting there one day and someone goes out to clean up the tractor and tHE NEXT THING YOU KNOW EVERYTHING IS GOING A HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR AND AAAAH and then it just stops again.

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