When I was a kid, my brother and I took great pleasure making fun of my dad when he got out of bed in the morning. It wasn't like we all slept in the same room, but you could hear dad all over the house. First, there was a big groan as he woke up, then you could hear his feet hit the floor, another groan, then a shuffle across the bedroom floor accompanied by a cough or two, some more groaning, maybe a swear word or two. To make a long story short, he had alot of aches and pains, and we thought it was funny.
Well, I make all the same sounds in the morning now as dad used to(and I am sure still does), I am not nearly as humored by my own sounds as I was dads. I make even worse sounds at night. At 40, I am one of the youngest farmers in the community, and that is fairly sad. Today among other things I burned 640 acres of pasture, a 320 I rent and a neighboring 320. My landlord and the neighbor and I did it as a cooperative effort. It was our first really warm day, and the fire made it warmer. We had to fire guard around a cemetary, and around the landlords house, it all took much longer than planned, which isn't that unusual. When we had the entire section contained, we were standing back surveying our handiwork and talking about the "old days" back 30 or 40 years ago when it was all backfires and wet gunny sacks. I am constantly reminded by the geezer brigade how in the old days they didn't need all this fancy gear to fight fire(whether fire department or controlled burning) all they needed was a steel rake, and wet gunny sack, and a back fire. This is actually true, I can well remember my father and grandfather coming in from fighting a wildfire black with the soot stirred by slapping the fire with wet burlap bags, you drug a bucket along with you and soaked your bag every little bit. There were more people in the neighborhood then, and they were younger. The county had one solitary 3/4 ton fire truck in this end of the county, and you made do with it and an army of farmers swinging gunny sacks. My neighbor John (who is about 55 I would guess) pointed out today that in order to fight fire like that now, you would need at least 6 ambulances coming along behind the fireline picking up all the heart attack and stroke victims, because everyone out here is so old now. The age thing came into play with my landlord Mike as well, as halfway through our backburn he suddenly remembered his paddle boat was in the tall grass next to his dock, and we had to make a made dash to save it. Yes, along with your physical abilities, your memory goes as well. We were going to burn another 160, but decided we were all too tired, just old I guess.
As you get older, everything gets just a little tougher. Saturday after it had rained over an inch, I found myself hopping over a steel hog panel one leg at a time, only to find my foot sinking into the soft mud on the other side resulting in me becoming high centered. With all the power I could muster, I finally got my other leg over, only to just catch my heel and go down with a thud in the mud. Only my pride was hurt, but I could remember a time when I could have recovered from something like that without even a bruised ego. Just the day before I had been trying to tag baby calves. My grip isn't as good as it used to be, and to my surprise 2 got away from me. I guess I am not as brave as I used to be either, because rather than tough it out as the cow bellowed and blew snot down my neck, I let go of one calf and ran away(I ran away, not the calf)....I just don't think I could come through a cow mauling as well as I used to.
My granddad retired when he was 83...if I can live that long I have about 43 years left. Problem is, I am not sure I will be in as good of shape as grandpa was...I am not sure I am in as good of shape now as he was when he retired. Oh well, I have one bright spot in the entire aging saga, a quote from a sign that hung over our old pharmacists desk....."old age and treachery will overcome youth and vigor everytime". I guess what we lose in physical prowess as we age we make up for in deviousness.
The PS to this blog is I thought we might start corn planting Friday, but it is raining now, so, I guess we are still a few days out.