Baling Hay and Buttoning Jeans

When my oldest daughter was first learning how to dress herself, she encountered the insurmountable obstacle of the snap-button on jeans, and I encountered the insurmountable obstacle of attempting to teach her to press together her tiny thumbs until she heard the button click. Frustration and tears followed (though I won't say from whom). One night while trying to button her jeans herself once more, she muttered, "This is hard." I followed with a phrase that I've used many times since as a father: "Yes, but we do hard things in our family."

I didn't hear that phrase myself growing up, because I didn't have to - I was simply required to complete arduous tasks without any questions about how I felt about it. While my mother primarily commanded and demanded academic perseverance, it was through my time on the farm that my father required of me tasks necessitating what I perceived to be Herculean strength.

I never felt like doing the work, for the record. My mind rebelled in these times, resenting what I was being made to endure. I never really verbalized this, though, for two reasons: I was never asked, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

I remember days of square-baling hay. Sometime in the morning either Dad or Grandpa would leave to go rake the hay in preparation. Knowing this, I began praying for rain, knowing this to be my only chance of escape. When the Almighty failed to grant me this daily bread, I would ask, "So how much is there?" My tone hinted only of curiosity as I attempted to conceal a heart of sloth. No matter how much there was, the answer from Dad was usually, "Oh, not a whole lot." This comment kept hope alive in me as I energetically stacked the first rack or two in the July heat. By the third I told myself that this had to be about it. By the 4th I became resentful. Everything after I just went numb. Almost 5, almost 6, almost 7 pm. Isn't he hungry yet? Won't it be dark soon? Eventually the job was done and we went home. But not until it was done. I don't remember ever being asked if I was too tired or too hot to finish. The answer didn't matter.

I handled a great deal of manure in my youth as well. I recall once in late August reminding my father that I had 4 hours of football practice that evening, and him telling me to make sure and get started early enough on manure shoveling to get done ahead of time. Pitchfork throw by pitchfork throw, my mind seethed of the victim I had become. I daydreamed of the other players napping on their couches, relaxing at the pool, or watching TV. But that anger got the job done, and somehow I didn't perish, and the world didn't end because I did something difficult.

The it was winter and the calves didn't stop soiling their pens because it was cold out. So I'd have to sit down, put on 3 pairs of socks, 4 shirts, and 2 pairs of pants to try to keep warm and go clean it up because that's what needed to be done.

I was at times ushered into the nursery where we kept pigs and told to power wash years of hog filth and fly shit off the walls and floors and gates. This is going to take forever ran the logic in my mind. My father pointed out where to start and left me to it.

I don't remember a day when I was told not to go outside because it was too hot. I didn't have a water bottle to clutch at the first hint of perspiration. Some days he worked next to me, and some days he told me to do it myself. The work never smelled good, and I wasn't offered a special treat if I just got it done. Expectations were clear, and the unspoken expectation working with my father is that we do hard things in our family.

I didn't do any of this because I wanted to. I didn't do it out of some great work ethic or devotion to a job well done or pride in the farm. I did it because Dad held me to that standard. I did it because I watched him do it on the farm, then head to the night shift to go do it all over again, sleep be damned.

And after being forced to do it for so many years, I began to appreciate being dirty and dog-tired at the end of a long task. I understood the satisfaction of a shower and a recliner after a sweat-stained, blood-stained day of getting work done. This satisfaction was all too late to acquire peace of mind during my youthful rebellious internal rants. But it was not too late to want it now for me and for my family.

My dad taught me that.