Making Assumptions

At work the other day I asked for a scoop shovel. You see, the different work stations generate a lot of saw dust and shavings only it is made of vinyl, not wood. I operate a corner cleaner, or rather, cleaners. I run two at a time, and someone else runs one behind the ones I run, so together we made a lot of saw dust. At the end of the day we clean our work area before the next shift takes over. Unfortunately, the other machinist blows all her dust to my side and then leaves it for me. The welder, which is the process right before the corner cleaners gets some dust because the actual saws which cut their parts leave a lot of the dust on the parts and it falls off when they weld it, so they too have some to add to the mess. Several people on my side work to clean up the dust and shavings from the other side, but my section is the worst with yards several inches deep. You can see why I might want a scoop shovel rather than a large dust pan.

The problem I had was not requesting the shovel, it was the smart Alec comment from one of the hardware guys. He used to work at a saw mill and admittedly knows about working with a scoop shovel all day, and he knows I come from a farm so should not be surprised that I too know how to use one. He actually had the nerve to say I didn't know how hard it was to use a scoop shovel. The shavings and dust from the vinyl isn't actually heavy; there's just a lot of it and it takes a long time so he should have just kept his mouth shut.

I stood there ready to pound him for such a foolish comment, but the welder operator also heard him and jumped on him so I wouldn't have to. He used to work on a farm so he knew what he was talking about. "Never assume that just because she is a woman she doesn't know about hard work or how to work hard with a shovel. She could probably work circles around you!"

I thanked him, but it got me to thinking about just how much I have done with a scoop shovel. This is not exclusive to me of course, farmers, male and female, young and old, know about this dreaded tool, or as my husband calls it, a s--t spoon.

When my eldest son was only three he knew how to use one of these shovels, even though he didn't take a lot at a time, after all, he was three, but he was 'helping mom' empty a one ton pick up truck with high side panels of hog feed. We had to shovel the feed off the truck into the feeders that were taller than the truck, even with the sides on.We sometimes emptied a couple a day to get the feeders filled. After I became pregnant with our second son and got a few months along, I told my husband he was just going to have to pony up the cash and have the feed company bring their truck out to fill the feeders. He drove a truck and wasn't often home to do the job himself or he would have been doing all that shoveling.

We also had an old hay wagon someone had put 8-foot sides on to use with a combine. We planted grain sorghum and combined it into that wagon and my son and I emptied it out by hand into 55 gallon drums, filled them with water to soak the grain and a few days later used it to slop the hogs. They love soured sorghum, by the way.

We unloaded sawdust from a sawmill for the garden and liter from a turkey farm for fertilizer for garden as well.

In Wisconsin, the scoop shovel was used for cleaning behind cows, the aisle and gutter when the clean out chain refused to work, as it sometimes did (and still does), and we had one for cleaning the feed aisle of silage that had gone uneaten in order to feed it to the outside young stock and feed the fresh to the inside milking stock. I have shoveled out hog pens as well. It is all heavy work and takes quite a while, sometimes several hours. We have to clean out silos also, sometimes using a large pitch fork (another invaluable tool) and sometimes that shovel.

All of this is taken care of by all members of a farm family, regardless of age or gender as long as they are physically able. So please, never make the assumption a woman does not know how to work hard or that a child does not know how to work hard or hasn't. If we come from a farm or small family business where labor is involved, we know.

Gardening Time Means Bugs

I love to garden so this is truly my favorite time of year. I really hate it when I go to get my gardening implements and tools are missing. I have been spending my weekends preparing my garden, even enlarging it by quite a bit, to get my veggies in. Yesterday I was going to work the garden before it got too hot and then mow the lawn, which grows as I watch it sometimes (I’d still rather the grass than snow). I ended up having to wait on a telephone call that was to be before noon but didn’t come in until three. Bummer. It was supposed to rain by Saturday night and not stop for a few days. My day was shot. I got my seeds and seed potatoes, tiller and then looked for the hoe that was supposed to be hanging on the wall of our shed next to a garden rake that is the same size. No hoe. After an exhaustive search I gave up. I lost even more time and ended up using the rake to plant. That is not easy either. I got roughly a third of the garden done.

I noticed around five o’clock gnats started swarming and by five thirty I was so overtaken by them I had to quit. I kid you not, I have welts all over my neck, face, ears, even one on one of my vertebrae on the back of my neck. They are swollen like bee stings, itch and feel bruised to the touch. The one on the back of my neck actually created a huge lump that distorted the shape of my neck and the other ones on my neck and face are so concentrated that they have affected the lymph nodes causing painful swelling all the way to my ears.  I’ve gone through about a half tube of the highest percentage hydrocortisone cream I can get and still ended up taking Benadryl last night, which only succeeded in helping me sleep; not stopping the itch.

This morning I made a drawing salve I have generally used for infected mosquito bites (it really works too). It helped the itch within minutes. They are still really red and swollen and painful though. I don’t know what to do with that. Maybe some hydrocortisone with lidocaine or aloe with lidocaine will help with the pain. I’ll have to try that next. See in the picture some of the bites. Just so you know – it’s really hard to take pictures of bites like these by oneself. Trust me; they’re huge.

                                                      Welts from bites of gnats on my neck. 

Recipe for Salve:

In a small cup (I use a 3-oz. bathroom cup) combine 1 tablespoon non-iodized salt and 1 tablespoon petroleum jelly. Mix well with something like a tongue depressor. Place a hot washcloth on affected area (to help bring venom or yucky infected stuff closer to the surface) for about a minute. Spread salve on the wound/bites fairly thick. Do not cover. As the petroleum jelly soaks into the skin the salt will start to fall off, so you will have to clean it off within about a half hour. You will see the salt change colors where the wound is. Infected wounds will turn yellow!

Clean area with a warm damp cloth. If treating an infected bite, apply an antibiotic ointment and cover with a bandage. If it is just an itchy bite, don’t cover it. Re-apply if the itching starts up again. Mine has lasted several hours so far keeping the itch at bay. The one on the back of my neck looked like a huge lump and has gone down to normal.