I wonder what the real amount of time is between, “You know, some day we’ll all look back on this and laugh,” and the day everyone involved actually does look back and laugh. Well, I’m going to jump out on a limb here and tell a story that will certainly get a few laughs. But I will preface it by saying, to some who may be still recovering from this situation, I apologize for the accident again, and I apologize for bringing it up in this column so soon.
That said, to the story:
Having been dating a particular Ozarks farmer for quite some time now, I have been privy to many chore-time dates, trips checking cows, trips chasing cows, etc. About a month ago, as we were all trying to dodge the last few rain days of hay season and get a final hay crop up, another such “farm adventure” with my boyfriend was presented. He was needing help in the hayfield, and I, the novice tractor driver but willing student, was eager to pitch in where I could.
Now, I have blonde hair, but to give myself some credit here, I’d like to say on this particular Saturday afternoon, I was especially tired because I had pulled an all-nighter the night before with my mom in her garage, preparing for a garage sale.
Regardless, I show up to the field, ready to roll, Red Bull energy drink in hand.
After relearning the tractor controls (it seems every six months I must relearn how to drive one, as that’s about as often as I do drive one) I take off, radio blaring, air conditioner full blast, and 20-foot rake in tow.
It didn’t take 15 minutes for me to figure out two things. First, I ain’t the woman I once was, and that all-nighter was really catching up with me as I took the tractor ‘round and ‘round in what had to be the most monotonous pentagon ever. Second – and much to my dismay – the air conditioner was blowing, at best, tepid air.
To stay awake, I tried screaming the lyrics to every country song that came on the radio. I even tried some mild calisthenics from the seat of that big John Deere. Finally, in a moment of desperation, I phoned a friend. Not the smartest move, but I was getting desperate.
As I chatted happily to my buddy, I took note of a very large, ominous tree stump in the middle of the field. The last thing I needed was to crash the tractor while on the phone. I’m pretty sure there would be no forgiveness for such stupidity.
As I rounded the field again, I decided I was going to make the most of every blade of hay cut in that field. I cut in close to the stump as I neared it, bound and determined to prove to myself and to others, that I had what it took to rake hay, even on no sleep.
But there’s one thing no amount of care will remedy, and that is forgetting that you have a 20-foot rake behind you.
Little did I realize, cutting the tractor in towards the tree stump actually meant running over the stump with the rake. As can be imagined, hay rakes don’t work as well on large, ages old, immoveable tree stumps.
In my panic, I threw my phone, as if to cast off any idea that my being on the phone while driving the tractor and crashing into the tree stump had any correlation. Also in my panic, I forgot how to make the large machine stop. So I continued to rake one row but not the other for nearly 50 feet. I think symbolically I was also wanting to distance myself from the culprit, that tree stump that was so inconveniently located in the middle of the hayfield.
I sat in the cab of the hot, sultry tractor for a good minute wondering how mad Ryan was, just a few rows behind me. From 100 yards away, he didn’t seem furious. I then thought of the family operation that would certainly be put days behind thanks to my stupidity. In my fatigue and stress, I began to cry. Then I dried it up, deciding no amount of tears would fix the mess at this point. So I gingerly picked the phone up from the dusty cab floor and called Ryan.
“Hello?” he answered, a definite strain in voice.
“Ummmm… I kindof had an accident… not THAT bad, but I sort of ran over a little bit of that, um, that tiny tree stump back there…”
This was not going to be pretty, I could already tell. From the seat of the tractor I could see three rake strippers (essentially the guards on the front of the rake) no longer a long ‘S’ shape, but more like a lower-case ‘r.’
“How did you do that?” he asked, in a voice that said, I’m not going to yell at you for this, but you can sure bet I’m not going to say five words to you for the next five hours.
As I contemplated the many ramifications of my mistake, I developed a short list of all the reasons this accident had occured. I quickly reviewed each one and crossed off the mistakes that were mine, and mentally circled the things that were out of my control. In that split-second thinking I realized the only things that weren’t my fault were the weak air conditioning unit and a tree stump that’d likely been raked around for generations. That put the score at My Fault-5, No one’s Fault-2. Guess there’s some things you just can’t get out of.
“How did I do it?” I asked.
How did I do it… boy, was he sure in for a story.
God Bless,
