Take One
One balmy summertime morning a duo of old age back , my wife and I did morning chores by the light of daybreak . I ’d take to feeding the Bos taurus and the pigs ; my wife delivered rations to the broiler chickens and layer hens . While my itinerary took me along a crushed rock driveway that ran beside the heavy - fauna pastures , the two set of chicken were secern by our largekitchen garden , its perimeter at that sentence guard by a low ( belike 36 - inch ) row of fence .
When my path intersect with my tearful married woman , I did n’t know that her boot had take in on the low fence and dropped her , weighty provender bucketful in both custody , to her stifle . All I knew was what she narrate me : “ I fall . My back really hurts . ”
The pain intensified over the legal proceeding daylight , and an emergency room sojourn disclose why : herniated magnetic disc , nerve harm , likely palsy if surgical procedure did n’t take place at once .
Take Two
Recently my ( now - go back ) wife , kids and I had to move two hours down the route in pursuit of the tenable income we could n’t squeeze out of sustainable farming . My parents opted to take over farm duties , with my family using queer weekends to pitch in on more laborious chores , as well as what we call “ tele - land ” : offering stimulus and direction from afar as it ’s needed . We were nervous , but our camber account was bone dry and option were limit .
Things were OK — andwhen they were n’t , we were secretive enough to jump back into thing . My parents buy a young boar , some gilts and a small movement of self-feeder fuzz .
“ Are you indisputable you want to take this on ? ” I ask .
“ Yeah , ” my parents replied . “ We ’ll be fine . ”
Then we learned my daddy was in the emergency way with a mysterious malady . The story was slow to stretch , but a MD finally pieced together a few incident to deliver a diagnosing : whiplash , minor concussion and grave affright attempt . He ’d touch off while doing chores ( whip ) , fallen and hit his headland ( concussion ) and , ineffective to process his country of injury , start to freak out out ( scare attack ) .
My dad ’s fine now , but we after learned that , during the sentence that he was not okay , the brunt of day-to-day chores had fallen to my mum , as they had me when my wife was down with her back injury . So I completely empathize what she signify when she said , “ We thought we ’d verbalise about everything when we made this decision . But somehow we just never talk about what we ’d do if one of us got bruise . ”
Danger Ahead
Farming is unsafe . In fact , along with mental synthesis , it ’s amongthe world ’s most dangerous occupations . And while it ’s true that tractor rollovers contribute the most to that determination ( we ’ve never even owned a tractor ) , the general decision to share outer space with animals , peculiarly magnanimous animals , and to go out of doors daily and face up the irregular whimsey of nature in monastic order to work the land advance solid food is an inherently risky one .
I fully consider the experience is worth the risk , but the first question we famers and prospective agrarians should expect ourselves is , “ What will we do if one of us gets hurt ? ” But , like my married woman and I and my parents , I mistrust not enough of us do ask this question . And it ’s not just our spouses or farm partners who brook when we go down for the count — our child abide from unexpected changes , our customer suffer when we ca n’t deliver our good selves to food market , and our farm animal will stick out from compromised care .
The item of this article , then , is to get you to postulate this question . Your answer will be specific to your billet , but I do have a few pointers to consider as you weigh things .
