the troubles that occur when SWATHING

• swathing- even the name sounds like trouble. but when you mix the machine w/ a 12 year old driver, you know for sure that nothing good will happen. i know these things from experiences that i have had. i'm going to just share a few w/ you.

-+-the 1st problem i had was not knowing that i was supposed to rev the throttle all the way up when not in field gear. so there i was, driving 2 mi/hr down the salmon hwy. i had no idea i was doing something wrong until my older cousin, skyler, flagged me down and taught me how to work the thing.

-+-the 2nd experience i had was opening a field. it was one of my first times doing it by myself, and i was very nervous. first of all, opening a field means cutting 3 swaths around the perimeter of the field so you can turn around when you start cutting the hay. anyway, this particular field had huge holes at the headgates where the water comes out. so the goal in opening a field is to cut as close the holes as possible without dropping a tire in them. i was doing my best when my stomach dropped and the swather tipped far down the left. i had done the unacceptable and dropped my front tire into one of those huge holes.

my dad was not home, and neither was my uncle, but i finally flagged down baker, he works for my dad too, and he helped me get my swather out of the hole.

-+-the 3rd problem w/ swathing that i had was when i forgot to pay attention to what i was doing. in one of our fields we have risers. these things allow water to get to the wheel lines so the hay can grow. well i was just singing to my radio, enjoying myself, when i heard and felt my swather stop. i had hit one of those risers, and the whole metal top had popped off. i was so scared to tell my dad, but i called him anyway. he was really, really mad because he had even put posts in the ground to help me see where the risers were. so i got banned from the radio, and almost banned from swathing for the rest of that crop.

• i have many, many more experiences w/ swathing- such as getting plugged and running into the ditchbank, and swathing our neighbor's field on accident- but i think i'll end here. i think this should be a lesson to all farmers: never trust a 12 year-old girl w/ an expensive piece of machinery.