(Started on 7/22/10)
Again, I think it takes a special kind of woman to be a dairyman's wife. You have to be independent 80% of the time, but then switch back into devoted wife when he gets home for that other 20%. You have to be understanding at all times, just accept that when you are in a hurry, nothing will go smoothly, and expect calves to be born on Sundays and Wednesdays. When your husband gets home late and you haven't seen him all day (or since 3 am when he left), you have to wait and back off a little and let him rest, eat, and shower before he's ready to hear all about your day or snuggle up on the couch. And, especially right now when times are hard, tongue biting becomes an Olympic event.
I've learned that there are two distinct seasons at our dairy: making hay season, and feeding hay season. Both are stressful. During making hay season, the goal is to get finished with dairy stuff ASAP every day so that you can head to the hay field. Weather is a very important factor. You have to pray that the rain doesn't fall while the hay is cut and laying on the ground, but that it rains buckets the split second after it's been bailed or fertilized and right before you start cutting the next field. You even hae to be concerned about the amount of dew on the hay, and most days you have to wait until the dew dries out enough to finish raking/bailing/stacking/moving hay. And let's not even talk about the "D" word: drought!
Besides the weather, you have other things to contend with, such as grass hoppers, army worms, equipment failure, fertilizer that sits too long on the dry field, quality of the hay, protein levels, etc.
During feeding hay season, the stress revolves around how much hay you are having to feed, how hungry your cows are, how long the hay you made the previous summer will last through the winter, how much you have to buy from other hay maker's, what the quality of that hay will be, how much hay costs and then trying to wait paitently until it's making hay season again.
And so the cycle continues.
