I didn’t grow up on a farm. But I’ve always wanted, bad, to be a farmer. by Chad
By Chad Steiner
Wednesday morning I was driving to Ephrata and saw a rod weeder sitting roadside – an HZ grain drill and the rod weeder, put away looking like it was ready for use or had just been used. Most people wouldn’t know what that is. A rod weeder is like this giant contraption with a horizontal bar that spins just below the soil surface – it spins throwing up weeds, soil and whatever else it drives through – even horny toads. They can be attached in about 10-foot sections, and the one I pulled felt like 10 of them… but maybe it was only 5.
Seeing it, I had just a flood of a memory, and it made me think about how bad I’ve always wanted to be a farmer.
It took me right back to college, when I had the opportunity to help out on a friend’s family farm in Waterville, driving an old D6 Cat and a rod weeder. I didn’t grow up on a farm. My friend’s dad, Sid, gave me some training, showed me which levers to pull, and kind of let me go – and these were levers, it wasn’t a steering wheel, levers that you pulled to go left or right. Getting the Cat going was its own thing, so it was quite a learning curve. That D6 felt so powerful, and it was so loud I remember wearing earmuffs, enshrouded in a cloud of dust, turning that Cat around with the huge rod weeder behind it and trying to follow where I had already been without running over the same ground twice or missing a section. The field behind me looked like a dusty mulch with straw sprinkled in.
I can still picture it. I was driving along and had a double take – holy cow, is that a horny toad outside in the soil? Then I saw another one – I had to investigate. So I stopped the Cat to check it out. I didn’t want to run it over, so I put it in the cab and let it ride with me. But because there was air conditioning, it was cold, and I ended up putting it back outside. The other one – I think I ran it over with the rod weeder… well, at least it disappeared in the dust cloud. I don’t think I ever told anyone that story.
I was the happiest thing on the planet. Like I had finally made it. I’d made it onto a farm, driving equipment around, living the dream.
Sid’s dad, Chuck, lived on the farm too, and I had a special relationship with him. He lived alone at that time, and the clearest thing I remember is the joy when he would see me come to have coffee with him. We’d sit at his kitchen table – the same kitchen where outside they branded cattle and worked on equipment in the shop and stored grain in the bins – and he’d tell me stories of the six brothers that made their way to Waterville and started these farms, and the trips they would make carrying bags of seed from Ellensburg on their backs, crossing the river on a ferry and carrying it by foot. He was a kind, gentle man, curious and interested in young people interested in farming. I think he appreciated the company, and the interest in the life that he had lived.
I don’t know if I was ever able to really share what it meant. It just felt cool.
Fast forward, and Jeana and I are 12 years in on our own small farm. That rod weeder took me right back to the place where I felt alive – and doing what we do now makes me feel alive. Those stories and that experience fueled our courage to start our own operation. And we still fight with fear – or dance with fear, maybe.
The interest in farms is at a height. Wine consumption has dropped at the same time. So we’re at a point where we need to know from you – what do we need to keep doing? What do we need to stop doing?
We love you and what you’ve helped us build. We would not have been able to build this without everyone reading this. Reply to the Farm Friday email, or tell us across the bar next time you’re here.
