Funnee: And I bet you were totally calm throughout the whole “repair process”, too, huh? That’s what I can’t fathom - when people are impaled or the like and they can rationally remove the object or clean themselves up. I suppose the body releases endorphins to alleviate the shock - too bad the witnesses don’t get them!
Y’all, I think dairy farming is much safer. Buy hay from other farms, don’t try to grow and bale your own. Ditto grain. That way you avoid a lot of the heavy machinery. Also, artificially inseminate the cows and for the love of God don’t keep bulls on the place.
I can only recall two major farm incidents. My dad was once kicked in the arm by a cow which, we think, broke his elbow. He never went to the hospital, so we don’t know for sure, but he had trouble with that elbow dislocating itself ever since.
And once when I was about 3 or 4, I wandered up behind my dad while he was cleaning manure out of a loafing shed and got pitchforked in the hand. I still vaguely remember my parents and grandparents hosing the manure off me–that kind of thing isn’t easy to forget, even for a little tyke. I still have the scars on my hand, too.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Gr8 Kat wrote
Tell that to my uncle. Let’s just say that poor positioning + a cow that likes to kick = a lot of uncomfortable swelling in some very tender areas during the teenage years.
I got a lot of energy ready to be wasted on somebody - Mookie Wilson
come to think of it…I have a cousin who was kicked in the face by a cow…we were really young, and it only slightly altered his face…
I was thrown from a horse 7 times in one day (bareback) and I had a concussion.
One other time, I fell off (again bareback) at a full gallop (that was a really close call, as I was nearly trampled by the other horses) and I sustained whiplash…had to wear a foam collar and everything…sued the horse, took all his money…(kidding-didnt really sue!)
My dad grew up on a farm, and he had problems breathing near the hay…so his older sadistic brother used to throw him deep into the haypile and watch him turn blue. (it was his kid who got kicked in the snout-there’s irony for ya!)
*picturing Kelli bareback *
I once got to help remove a farmer from a haybaler, and helped right an overturned tractor (no injuries) but that’s all I’ve come across.
Jeremy…
I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine - Kurt Vonnegut
Funeefarmer;
Being one of those women for whom watching men work themselves into a sweaty, bruised mess is the equivilant of watching a porno movie, I found this statemnt to be the sexiest thing ever said on this board:
ooh, I’m still tinglin’.
“I think it would be a great idea” Mohandas Ghandi’s answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization
I’m still stuck on the Quentin Tarantino version of Green Acres, that has real potential,
Larry
My great grandfather blew himself to pieces with dynamite he was carrying when he fell while trying to climb over a fence. Another relative had his arm literally torn off in a combine. I think I’ll just this here office job, thank you.
“I think I’ll just KEEP this here office job…” KEEP. KEEP. KEEP.
My mother grew up on a farm, and she had all kinds of stories of people losing digits in machinery, getting mauled by animals, playing with matches and burning down barns, something about being attacked by a particularly vicious pig (that one really sticks with me), etc. I was one of the few kids I knew who didn’t have a romanticized view of the American Farm.
Lucky: I’m grinning ear to ear. Actually not bloody at all today. Helped my uncle deliver live fish to a soil and water office up in the Adirondacks. The leaves are right around their peak right now.
You bet farming is dangerous! It’s hard, unforgiving physical work.
My uncle had one finger flayed and nearly ripped off; wedding ring caught in machinery. He also lost part of a foot while hitching a ride on the business end of a disker. BTW, he also nipped at the bottle a bit, and farming is just way to dangerous to be half sozzled.
Worst I can remember as a kid was when the neigboring farmer was crushed to death when his tractor overturned on him.
My worst was a brush–literally–w/ rusty concertina wire. Not serious, but MAN do I hate tetnus shots! And w/ all those horse apples around, the shots are a must.
When you factor in back injuries, strains, sprains, etc., it makes me really grateful to farmers w/ mouthful of food I eat.
Veb
(P.S. Yes, you really can hypnotise chickens by having them stare out of a dark barn, through the cracks, into the sunlight. You may not get into trouble for doing it, but I did.)
A good friend of my dad’s lost all the fingers (but kept the thumb) on his right hand in a hay baler. It’s not too bad, though…he can still hold a beer can.
Another friend of my parents’, on the other hand, had a worse time. This was, I believe, around 1970. At the bottom of the inside of a silo is, basically, a huge funnel. This kid (still in high school) was standing under the funnel as the silo was being filled with grain for livestock feed. The bolts holding the funnel up sheared, and he was flattened under tons of grain, instantly.
Speaking of silos, just about every year you hear of someone in the state who dies after being overcome by “silo gas”.
Also seem to remember something about a security guard who fell into a storage bunk of drying hops. He died of asphixiation after sinking into the hops.