Footprints on the Web

Haying season is a multi step process. We first have to cut the hay in the fields, then we rake it, then we bale it into bit round bales, and finally we haul it to where we can access it in the winter as it serves as food for the sheep in the winter. The round bales have to ne rolled out in order for the sheep to be able to graze on it. Each step of the haying process uses a different type of tractor. And they are all big, heavy trucks built with men over 6 ft and 200 lbs in mind.

The first time I told the farmers I want to help with haying, the patriarch of the farm told me it wouldn’t be possible and that my legs are too short. Well, if he knew me any better he wouldn’t have said that I cannot do something. Because you can damn well bet, that became my mission.

The first tractor I ever drove was one of the largest ones on the farm. Go big, go home right? I had a great and patient teacher. Baling was what I started with. No one on the farm did this or used the baler but one of the farmers because it required a lot of attention to detail and for the driver to be fully vested in the process. You have to watch the count on a system, be ready to stop, know when to eject and watch carefully before you close the PTO back up again. Additionally, every few bales you have to shut off the PTO and clear off any hay buildup so that the machine runs smoothly. This involves pulling hay from the blades on the bottom, top, sides, etc. By the end of it, you are just covered in dust. And hay. My first time I baled an entire field. It was a long day but such a fulfilling one. After a job when you look back at the field to see round bales all around the field, the sense of accomplishment one feels is hard to explain. That first day didn’t go all smoothly. The baler completely stalled on me at some point. There was a large clump of hay I was trying to get to. I couldn’t get it all on the first go so tried to back into it and BAM! The lever that connected the tractor and baler just tailgated right into the baler. Next thing I know it just shut off completely and there was smoke coming out of there because of how heated it was. I called the farmer right away. He came and was cool as a cucumber. We cleared some hay build up and he poured some water on the wheel that had blackened from heat and smoke coming from it. It was sizzling with the touch of water. We waited a few and then he started it back up again. I was saying my prayers while he did that because I knew that in addition to being the biggest monster on the farm, it was also the most expensive one. I would have totally understood if he didn’t want me to drive it again and wanted to finish up the field himself. But nope! He handed it back to me and told me to keep going. I asked him if he trusted me with it. And he said absolutely, get going!

I learned how to trim and rake next. Trimming is similar to cutting in that we use the same tractor but in addition to laying out the hay to be raked and baled, trimming just leaves the cut grass behind for the sheep to graze on. One of the other farmers taught me how to use the trimming tractor and I got to do an entire field. We need to watch out for animals (not just sheep) while cutting. If a snake of raccooon gets caught, we are expected to finish the animal by hittin it with a hammer. Fortunately, this never happened to me. If it had, there is no way I could have gone ahead wit it and would have had to call someone to finish the animal for me.

The first day I raked entire 2 fields in a row in Brutus, the tractor was probably a day I won’t forget soon. It was one of the hottest days and my only water bottle fell in between the cracks early on in my day. I could have easily asked the farmer baling behind me for water as I knew he carries extra bottles but I was just so focused on the mission for the day ahead before the rain hits in the evening, that I was like screw hydration! As I finished up the first field and went onto the second field, it got worse. The field had marked ditches that I was to avoid. But also some smaller unmarked ditches that I felt on my back. Speaking on which, the raking tractor is the worst on your body and back the next day. You feel every muscle and joint. Right after my first round, 2 of the 5 rake blades on the left just spun off ad got severed. Yup, massive huge blades weighing more than me just flew off. The remaining blades still worked so I messaged the farmer to let him know about it and that I was going to keep going given we were to finish the field before it started to rain. He agreed as he was still finishing up baling on the first field. I noticed that with the 2 missing blades, it was leaving a side trail of hay that was not being picked up by the raker. I also noticed that the other side of blades were not turning, gathering and lining up the hay as well as it is supposed to. Instead it was dragging hay. I tried stopping and clearing it up a few times. But it kept happening. The farmer who had finished baling and gotten to the 2^nd field messaged me saying the side trail of hay was hard to pick up by the baler and to meet him by where the blades had fallen off. And do I did. Right when he looked at the side where the blades hadn’t fallen off, he was in shock. And I had totally missed it. There was a really long piece of thick metal fence wire that had twisted tightly around the blades. This is what happens when people doing fencing forget s fence wire on the field and why the hay was being dragged because the tight wire stopped the blades from turning. The well prepared farmer got his cutting tool and started cutting the metal wire and getting me to pull it out as he cut it because it was way too tightly wound up for us to unwind. Once that was done, we tried to see if could put the fallen blades back together. No luck. They were way too heavy to lift and plus the handle that connected the blades to the lever had severed off. We left it as is and kept raking and baling.

Once I was done raking, I drove Brutus with the raking blades pulled up to the farm. This meant driving it on the roads on a busy weekend.  Oh did I mention that all tractors are manual with gears, older than I am and super rusted? So yes, shifting gears requires all your strength and there’s 8 different gears. IT makes a damn loud roaring sound when you change gears if you don’t press down on the clutch hard. While on the road, you also have to watch out for low tree branches and lower the rake blades and put them back up accordingly. Since the tractor is slow and it’s a narrow road, you will also need to slow and give side to any cars lining up behind you. So it takes awhile to get to your destination on a tractor. As I pulled into the farm and was going to park it, one of the farmers started walking towards me which forced me to brake on an incline. Only the tractor didn’t stop. It started rolling back. I was pressing the brake hard and put the gear on neutral. It did nothing. The tractor was rolling back towards the wool shed where all our retail space it. I got screamed at saying to brake. Which is what I was doing. The tractor stopped rolling back once it was at the bottom of the incline . No water, no food, 8+ hours of raking in hot sun, I could not handle it anymore. I got off the tractor with my stuff and told the farmer to park it and walked away.

The farmer who screamed at me didn’t trust me with driving Brutus on the road anymore. He said that if I was to rake, one of the staff  guys had to drive it to the field and back for me. The patriarch didn’t want me driving Brutus anymore. The next time a field had to be raked, I was asked by the teacher/patient farmers if I would like to help out. As much as I wanted to jump at the opportunity, I was very discouraged. So I was honest to him about it. He gave me a pep talk. About risk and security. And also how conservative and old mentality thinking of the other 2 male farmers can be. He pushed me to go raking on Brutus again. And though hesitantly, I went because of the confidence and trust he placed in me. Once done raking, he guided me on how to stop on a hill and got me to practice it over and over. He also told me to practice changing into all the different gears. And when I was confident and could go show the other farmer what I could do without any help, I was good.  That day, I drove Brutus home to the farm once again. Right when I was pulling up the farm,  the staff and the farmer who screamed at me were standing there and watched me do everything seamlessly. I parked it in the area we call junkyard (and park all our tractors) and made sure everything that needed to be unhooked was, and all checks were completed before walking away.  I was pretty damn proud of myself.

That evening my thoughts about how we as a society raise our boys and girls couldn’t escape me. If we had more father figures and teachers like the farmer who helped me regain my confidence, we might get just a little closer to abolishing sex inequality and shifting people’s attitude.

In life, we all will come across a Brutus, if not many– it can be a person, place, situation, experience. It will be when we will feel beaten down, our insecurities will surface and think this is not meant for me because it is so hard. And we have 2 options. We can either arm up and face it or simply give up and not try at all. From my personal experience I can tell you that I am yet to regret armoring up and facing the Brutes in my life.