I think a lot of people have the idea that farming just involves planting the crop, harvesting it, and sitting in the coffee shop, while that sounds pretty good I found myself realizing how much time I spend on the farm doing other things besides farming.
In reality I would say that it is a safe bet that for every 1 hour I spend in the tractor or combine seat I spend two hours either working on equipment, running for parts, chemicals, etc. And for every I spend running equipment I am sure that I spent 3 hours paying bills, financial planning, crop planning, seed and chemical research-and on and on.
This past weekend was 4th of July-so I decided to use the long weekend to catch up on farm work-both inside and out. I decided to keep track of hours. In the last week I spent 36 hours on the farm, that included 3 hours paperwork, 3 hours of marketing research and corn sales, 4 hours running for parts and supplies, 4 hours mowing ditches and field edges, 2 hours touchup spraying with ATV, and 20 hours in the shop working on planter and combine and rebuilding a lift pump for spray tractor. 36 hours and the only REAL fun butt in tractor seat part was mowing...and calling mowing fun is a bit of a stretch.
Not that I don't enjoy working in the shop, the worst day working in shop is better than the best day in the office.....although I may have changed that story while working in the hopper of combine last night in top of shed with no air movement, 90% humdity, and about 90 degrees. And I do enjoy marketing research and paperword...well that is a necessary evil.
I do enjoy almost all aspects of farming-but there sure are times where planting, harvesting, and drinking coffee sounds pretty good.
