You know I’m a farmer because you can see it all over my face. Maybe it’s my blindly optimistic expression or perhaps the deep-set eyes in a near permanent squint from driving into the sun for over fifty summers.
As with most farmers the dark spots are either age spots, motor oil or cow manure. The quick grin is punctuated by a chipped front tooth thanks to a well-placed kick from a heifer’s first time in the milking parlor. And the harrowed brow is from too much scowling at the morning weather report. Many farmers are wearing glasses by the time they are forty, mostly from struggling to read the fine print on their power bills. They are somehow expected to have a special type of x-ray vision. Like the time I rode in a lime truck to make sure the driver found the right field. Just as he started the spreader, the wind came up and the truck was suddenly engulfed in a blinding sea of lime dust. We roared along for what seemed like an eternity, when the driver turned to me and asked, “Just how far up ahead do you think that hedgerow is?” Fortunately he stopped just short of hitting a big tree.
Square in the center of most farmers’ faces is perhaps the most important sensory organ of all, his nose. Many times problems around the farm are smelled before they can be seen or heard. Examples are the scent of burning rubber from a slipping belt, the pungent odor of diesel fuel which could denote a major leak and the strong smell of an infection could spell trouble for some poor animal. Oh, and I almost forgot, the strong smell of cow manure in the house spells trouble for whoever was too lazy to wash off their boots.
As for the sense of hearing, fortunately we were given two ears, instead of one, unlike the lonely nose. I have enough trouble keeping my glasses on with two, so we are lucky that way. Quite often farmers are described as having big ears but I don’t think that is always true, for my wife says I can’t hear a word she says. Hearing is such an important sense. How else could we discern the cries of a cow in labor over the ambient noise of the milking parlor, the wailing of a dry bearing over the roar of an engine and the unmistakable rumble of a tire gone flat?
Taste is the last sense that a farmers face gets involved in. A farmer can taste the satisfaction of baling the last bale of summer hay, before a long rainy spell begins. A farmer can taste the joy of being the first one to finish planting in the spring.
And a farmer can have the good taste to not brag too much, knowing the difference between good management and just plain good luck. Yes, a sense of pride is evident in every farmer’s face.
Joe Peck, a Saratoga County dairy farmer, storyteller and humorous speaker, is author of “A Tractor in the House & Other Smashing Farm Stories” and “A Cow in the Pool & Udder Humorous Farm Stories” which you may order at www.joepeckonline.com or call (518) 584-4129.
