Shiftwork

2500 hundred acres doesn't get harvested overnight, or in a week or in even two. It takes time...and that's if everything goes your way. Mother Nature always seems to think she needs to make her presence known. Break downs will cease all activity. And of course, tractors don't drive themselves (well most don't anyway). It takes a lot of time, people, and effort to run a farm.

For most of the year, my dad takes care of business himself. Throw in the cow-calf operation and he's busy from sun up until sun down. When harvest rolls around, the crew around the Cook Farm drastically increases. And it varies from week to week. Friends, family, and seasonal help all help make sure harvest gets done.

We laugh at home because dad will sit at the kitchen table and scratch out who's going to be there the next day along with what they're going to be doing. I wish I would have gotten a photo or two of one of these lists. There's no replicating the real thing but they'd go something like this:

Dave
Doug-S
Ron-C
Kelly-C
Darryl-H
Nathan-M
Steve-T

Doesn't it kind of remind you of a batting order? And then there's the positions. Only Dad knows that those mean - Semi at home, combine, cart, Hilldale semi, Milledgeville semi, turbo-till. You don't want to be at the end of the batting order - you might get stuck with a crappy job.

We were pretty lucky to be at the top of the "batting order". Our "positions" never changed. Of course that meant that Ron spent the better part of 12 hours in the combine each day. Just like shiftwork....