It sure is easy to sit in the A/C and look out the window at the farmer out on a tractor. We all know that one guy that sits in his recliner every Sunday and barks at his favorite football team. This guy seems to know everything his team “should” have done. Well farming and ranching are now different. There always seems to be an armchair farmer sitting somewhere comfortable telling us what we “should” be doing.
Hay baling
On those long hot summer days it feels great to be in the pool, on the lake, or just in the A/C. From those comfy spots I’ll promise somewhere nearby there’s a farmer/rancher that’s been up since dawn on a tractor trying to put up hay. It’s not always the most pleasant or glamorous task, but one that has to be done.
Nothing irritates me more than that guy with no horse in the race, sitting in the conditioned air telling me how I “should” be doing things. From his armchair or pickup cab, he always seems to have advice like, “well I would call a mechanic.” Or “that baler is junk, I would buy a different one.”
Is the armchair farmer paying for all this?
That all seems well and good if I had someone else’s checkbook. Or if I could leave hay on the ground for days while I wait on a mechanic. The “armchair farmer” never sees the nights in the shop turning our own wrenches and doing everything we can do to keep our equipment running.
I have found that hay balers can be more cantankerous than that bug-eyed mamma cow that just calved. They’re not a super complex machine but they sure have to be close to perfect to work well. I do everything in my power to do all the preventative maintenance on my equipment. Even with doing that, I never seem to get through a year without a few major headaches.
Those breakdowns are a big enough pain without that guy stopping by to tell you what you “should” do. Don’t get me wrong, there are folks that have the experience that have helped me greatly. Usually though, I get the guy that tried baling hay for a couple years and decided he didn’t want to work on equipment. So he just parked it all in the fence row and quit. Why in the world would I want advice from someone who just quits when the job gets tough???
It happens everywhere
Sometimes the “armchair farmer” is at your place. He’s giving his armchair advice on the way you “should” rebuild your working facilities. Or the way you “should” be feeding your calves. Again, most of their advice might be alright if I had their checkbook. I know I would build my facilities dramatically different if money wasn’t an issue. Feeding cattle is one that really cracks me up. One of the best cattleman I’ve ever known once told me, “Anyone can keep cows alive. It takes a good cattleman to feed cattle the right way.” You’ll always hear, “well my dad fed this way,” but their dad went broke in the cattle business and hasn’t fed anything in 40 years!
I didn’t really mean to go on a long crabby rant, but it happened. I appreciate advice of any kind but I sure can’t stand someone telling me how to do my job. So next time you see a guy out there in the field working on a baler, maybe go ask him if he needs a hand or just a bottle of water. For the guy trying to work cows and half of them blow through that gate that’s been patched a few times… He’s doing the best he can with what he’s got to work with. We all try to take care of what we have because it may be the only one we get. There’s my rant for now, I promise to be more positive. Don’t forget to eat beef from your local producer and shop SK Leather.
