The fields around here are being cleaned off and the hay is being stored. Each load of hay requires at least three trips around the field or more. Couple that with the price of gasoline, and you have a major expense. Farmers are not saying much about that cost, but it is certainly there. I have no idea what the farmer is getting for his milk these days, but you can bet it is not more than five dollars a gallon like it is in the stores. Of course, stores have to factor in the cost of shipping as well.

Being a farmer’s wife for more than thirty years I am sensitive to the plight of the farmer. We never made big bucks on our milk, but at least we had fresh milk on our table. Farming is more than what is produced. It is a way of life. I am proud to claim the industry as part of my heritage.

Our children learned their work ethic by helping their dad on the farm. They learned to give up fun because there was hay to be taken in. Actually, their friends became part of the haying crew many times. I think the boys especially liked the physical work. They often had muscles that they never knew they had the day after helping take in hay, but because they worked together it was fun.

Fast forward to the days when the children were in college. My husband had a hard time finding farm labor. The boys who lived down the road helped as well as another one from up the road, but they were not always reliable. They had other jobs which took them away from the farm.

I will never forget the day when one of them threatened to call off of work so that he could help hay. He should have. Later that day he was electrocuted at work. What a sad day that was!

Haying is different today. You may have noticed the big bales that often sit in the fields. If they are individually wrapped, they resemble a big marshmallow. My son contracts to have his hay custom baled. The baler brings his own machinery to the farm and it is done in a lot less time than it used to be. Yesterday I heard machinery going up the hill. That means that today I should hear the bales being transported down past my house to the bale wrapper.

Farmers have been forced to be inventive. The young people go to town to work these days and earn a whole lot more than they used to earn on the farm. I have a grandson doing an internship for a company in New York. They have even asked him to stay connected working remotely while he goes back to school.

I remember the days when it was just the family doing the haying. They used to have a baler that threw the bales into a big wagon with a rack. That was okay, but you had to watch when you rounded the corner or a bale would be thrown into the field. That just meant there was another piece of machinery to maintain.

My husband was the one who kept everything going. His mother told me that he used to follow the machinery around the field watching how it worked. He was too young to help at that point. Well, his watching definitely paid dividends because he could fix most things on his own.

I was the go-fer. I had to go for this and go for that. When I got to the parts place, they always asked me a question that I did know the answer to. They offered me the phone to call my husband, but I declined because I knew he would be in the field. Of course, that was before cell phones. Sometimes I brought home more than one part thinking maybe one of them would work. I could always return the other one.

The day that I felt humbled to be helping was the day my father-in-law sat in a chair beside the field watching. He was taking dialysis and unable to drive the tractor. I was forced into being the tractor driver. My husband told me when I came to a woodchuck hole to stop. He would drive through that and then I could drive once more.

It was hard on grandpa to be only be an observer. He had been the driver for most of his life. Earlier in the season he had an accident. He fell off the tractor and had to have a lot of stitches. It was just lucky that the tractor ran into a tree and stalled. No that was not luck – it was God watching out for him.

The farm is a dangerous place to work. Each year there are many farm accidents. When you are driving machinery, you have to pay attention. There are no yellow lines down the middle as there is in the road. You are on your own driving an expensive piece of machinery.

Dear farmers, we are thinking of you as you do your work this summer. We ask that the Lord watch over you. We also ask that you are able to continue your way of life for without you, we would not have food. Amen.

Ann Swanson writes from her home in Russell, Pa. Contact at hickoryheights1@verizon.net.