There has been a lot of buzz about
the "farmer' super bowl commercial which got me thinking of my own
farmer. I have said before what my husband does is fancy farming but it's
farming none the less. Almost everyday, in every weather is
he outside taking care of his crop. He works very hard, every day
and sometimes I get numb and forget to notice all the weight he carries.
Winters are spent making sure his
team trims almost 250,000 trees (all by hand) before the spring comes.
They do this every day, in every kind of weather, snow, rain, wind and just
plain COLD.
Once they make it through the winter
spring rolls through Central New York. This is one of the most critical
times on an apple farm. This is when the buds begin to grow, flower, get
pollinated and eventually become the beginnings of fruit. Of
course none of this happens magically. You need sun, rain, plenty of bees
and temperatures that above freezing. The month of May is carefree time
for most families, spring is in full swing, summer is on the horizon, people
being mowing the lawn and playing outside. In our house May can be very
stressful. May is beautiful, sunny, sometimes warm during the day and can
be very cold at night. At each stage of bud development they can
only tolerate a certain level of cold before they become damaged (damaged bud
=damaged flower or no flower which affects the apple). This means that
checking the weather is an hourly occurrence along with studying wind maps, jet
stream and a bunch of other charts that I still don't
understand. Usually, the most beautiful clear sky days bring
on the hardest nights.
On a night when there is
going to be frost my farmer spends his day prepping the farm by checking his
wind machines (tall fans that keep air moving so cold can't settle into the
valley) laying out smudge-pots and checking all his thermometers to make sure
they are accurate. The next step is to get to bed. He comes home and
tries to go to bed right after dinner because he know that before long he will
be back up headed to work. He will wake every hour and check the
temp and when it starts to get close to his critical point he calls in in
troops who all probably wake their wives while they try to get out of the house
quietly at midnight. Together this army works through the night trying to
keep cold air out and flowers in tack. Usually after this there is still
a full day of work to put in the next day because you spend all your time the
day before prepping and you need to keep on your normal schedule of spring work
so you don't get behind. It's an exhaustive process that thankfully isn't every
night and is normally only about a month long.
When spring turns to summer concern
of frost is a distant memory and instead water is a concern. Trees that
don't get enough water have small fruit, weak fruit.
Summer becomes fall and full harvest
begins. Apples get picked everyday in every kind of weather.
While harvesting your crop you are also worrying about selling
it. Will it be good enough? Will there be enough? Will
it store well? Will the price hold? The tricky thing about
farming is that you spend all your money (on prep, labor, supplies) before you
sell anything all in hopes that you do everything right, mother nature
cooperates and you have people that want to buy your product. To stay
it's stressful at times is an understatement.
Farming is certainly a labor of
love. It's not a get rich quick scheme but it is providing my children
with experiences and memories they will have forever and that will make them
into better adults. They will know what hard labor is, they will
fear it and respect it and I bet they will love it just as much as their dad.
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