84-Lancastar Farming, Saturday, Juna 27,1987
On being
a farm wife
-And other
hazards
Joyce Bupp
There could be no mistaking that
sound.
Beginning as a steady hum,
growing to a diesel roar, the
throbbing voice of the combine’s
horsepower vibrated against the
air on a morning thick with
choking humidity. A glimpse of
dusty red through the calf barn
windows confirmed the machine’s
approach. Slowly it crept down the
drive for an appointment with the
high pressure hose at the
milkhouse.
No champagne bottle smashing
across her bow commissions this
battleship of the barley fields and
corn shelling, as we open each
grain harvest season. Instead, with
the flip of a milk house switch and
pressure on the hand-held hose
nozzle, the faithful old combine is
once again readied for service with
a thorough cleanout of winter dirt,
dust and spider family con
dominiums.
More than a mere com
missioning ceremony, the annual,
opening day combine hoseout is,
rather, a precautionary measure.
Combines, I’m convinced, can be
one of a farmer’s most faithful
mechanical servants or a
only used in the winter months to solve winter-type
problems.
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deadly, unforgiving enemy.
All the ingredients are there for
potential disaster: what seems like
miles of moving chains and belts;
gears and other turning parts
lubricated in thick, sticky grease;
a binful of dry, dusty grains; weed
seeds, chaff and more dust ac
cumulating in filters and in every
exposed nook and cranny; a tank
full of volatile fuel; and heat from
a pounding motor adding to that
shimmering above fields of dry,
easily-combustible stems.
Even a tiny, insignificant spark
can erupt this scenario into
disaster.
With the combine being bathed, I
headed for the basement, grabbed
two objects and delivered them to
the hose-down supervisor.
“Put ’em in there and keep
’em in there,” I order, handing the
youngest a large fire extinguisher
and a smaller, aerosol can. With
the woodstove shut down for the
summer, I will rob the ex
tinguishers kept close to it for
temporary use on this most fire
prone piece of field equipment.
“But there’s one already in
here,” he laughs, handing out from
the combine cab an identical large
extinguisher, minus safety pin and
reading “recharge” on the con
tents indicator.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been
hollering about! ” I grumble.
“Are you expecting a fire?”
queries the other kid, exiting the
milkhouse after morning cleanup.
And with that I spout one of my
favorite personal philosophies:
“When you’re prepared for a
disaster, it doesn’t usually hap
pen.”
Thus, this household has been
listening for the past few weeks to
Mother’s tirades about getting fire
extinguishers on all the tractors
and major pieces of equipment. No
one disagrees. In fact, for once we
all agree on something.
Just 48 hours previous, a spark
from a weld repair on the baler had
started a very minor fire in the dry
grass of the field where the
equipment sat. After stomping out
the flames with his foot, the farmer
kidded (maybe not?) that he’d set
his shoe on fire m the process.
Was there a fire extinguisher
near? Of course not.
Adding fuel to my continuing fire
tirades was an incident shared
recently at a meeting by a young
farmer, who was able to contain a
grease fire in the family’s
remodeled home when he quickly
grabbed and used a working fire
extinguisher kept on hand for
woodstove problem protection.
Though the foam left a household
mess, the cleaning up was minor
compared to the devastation of a
major fire.
We have had occasional small
motor and grass fires in and
around field equipment. Con-
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tainers of drinks, handfuls of dirt, on the issue of more plentiful
and the intervention of the and full!—fire extinguishers.
Almighty have thus far contained Farm wives and mothers, this is
them with little damage. Our fire a completely valid issue to nag
extinguishers are still too few about. Please join me in nagging
and too far between. your men about fire extinguishers
Both a nagging mother and a in machinery and buildings,
teenager two-time graduate of 4-H Not that I need a legitimate
tractor safety club have declared reason to nag. The farmer would
our mission to pester and persist quickly confirm that. But, at least
he sees the value in it this time.
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