As much as my husband Brian and I are the same, we are twice as different. It definitely keeps the dynamic of living and working together interesting to say the least. So here is a fun little story about how sometimes it is possible for us to work together.
The other day Brian set off to bed the dry cows and calves. To his surprise he found a hole in the tire of our skid steer, we had been nursing the tires along so I wasn't surprised to hear that his recommendation was that it was time for new ones. I reluctantly agreed and he called our tire guy AJ for an appointment to bring in the rims to get the new tires on. His appointment was at 1:00 pm, so he blocked up the back of the skid steer and used the loader to keep the front end up. He left to get the tires and returned a couple hours later to find the skid steer had settled and the boom was blocking the door. The problem is that you have to be in the skid steer to start it, to then put the boom down to get the tires on. You can't get in the door with the boom in the way. It looked like the only way to get in was to break the glass in the door. I shook my head, now we were in for the cost of the new tires and what looked to be a new door. (Insert every cuss word known to man here).
Disgusted Brian came to the house and decided to sleep on it. Early the next morning I got up to feed calves and as I was mixing my milk, Brian entered the shop. I could see this wheels turning. "Just help me a minute here." he said. "Yeah right", I thought. This was going to take way more time than we had before milking. Skid steers aren't meant to start without you in them, we had to break every safety feature New Holland had come up with.
First, open the window. We were lucky that one wasn't latched and we could slide it open through the metal grid that protects them. Second, buckle the seat belt and if we had to do this again we never could. This we managed to do with some "tools" laying around the shop. Me with my pipe though one window and Brian with a broken handle of a shovel through the other. We worked methodically pulling the belt out, lining it up and clicking it in. I almost couldn't believe that we did it. I just looked and Brian and said "Did we really just do that." The skid steer won't start without pressure on the seat so I had to push down on the seat with my handle while Brian grabbed the keys with his finger tips and got it started. He quickly grabbed a screwdriver, pushed off the button for the parking break, grabbed his broken handle and pushed down on the lever pushing the boom out of the way.
I couldn't believe that we worked together that well and what seemed like the only time in the history of farming everything lined up and worked for us. When things get tough and it seems like nothing can go right I will keep this little story in my back pocket to pull out and remind myself that some days... farminz fun!
